Fictions of Display explores the intersections of theatre, performance, and display within MOCA’s (Los Angeles, USA) permanent collection. Props, sculptures, stages, and pedestals mingle with actors, impersonators, and the ghostly presence of the audience itself, revealing the strategies through which objects are staged, circulated, and experienced.

Central to the exhibition are works from Claes Oldenburg’s seminal project The Store (1961–62), in which replicas of everyday goods were made, sold, and exhibited, collapsing the boundaries between art, commerce, and performance. Complementing these iconic works are documents from the Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen papers, on loan from the Getty Research Institute, alongside new acquisitions and works rarely shown at MOCA.

The exhibition also highlights theater’s imprint on visual art, from Tadeusz Kantor’s hauntingly intimate painting to Catherine Sullivan’s video installations, which merge film, theater, and art to interrogate representation. A live element threads through the galleries in Tania Pérez Córdova’s Portrait of an Unknown Person Passing By, where a performer subtly moves among visitors, echoing the patterns of a ceramic object on display.

As Oldenburg himself wrote in 1962: “Theater is the most powerful art form because it is the most involving… I no longer see the distinction between theater and visual arts very clearly.”

Fictions of Display invites visitors to reconsider the museum as a stage, where objects perform as much as they are observed, and where the line between artist, audience, and artwork is delightfully blurred.