Claes Oldenburg (Swedish, b. 1929) began using the mouse subject in 1965 as a mask he created from the profile of an old movie projector. Essentially a house for miniature objects collected by the artist, The Geometric Mouse head became a logo for the artist, which originated at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Denying that it is autobiographical, Oldenburg instead refers to it as a “thinking cap.” Many of the items encased inside the Mouse Museum and the Ray Gun Wing—designed specifically for the exhibition—are prototypes for works that Oldenburg would later execute on a monumental scale.

This exhibition traveled to the Phoenix Art Museum, St. Louis Art Museum, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.