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Ed Ruscha

Photographs

March 20–April 19, 2003
Beverly Hills

Ed Ruscha: Photographs Installation view, photo by Douglas M. Parker Studio

Ed Ruscha: Photographs

Installation view, photo by Douglas M. Parker Studio

Works Exhibited

Ed Ruscha, Ross the Rooster, 1960 Unique gelatin silver print, 14 × 11 inches (35.6 × 27.9 cm)© Ed Ruscha

Ed Ruscha, Ross the Rooster, 1960

Unique gelatin silver print, 14 × 11 inches (35.6 × 27.9 cm)
© Ed Ruscha

Ed Ruscha, Palm Springs (Bowtie Landscapes), 2003 Pigmented inkjet print, 21 ½ × 43 inches (54.6 × 109.2 cm), edition of 35

Ed Ruscha, Palm Springs (Bowtie Landscapes), 2003

Pigmented inkjet print, 21 ½ × 43 inches (54.6 × 109.2 cm), edition of 35

Ed Ruscha, Twin Palms, 1965/2003 Gelatin silver print, Image: 7 ⅜ × 7 ⅜ inches (18.7 × 18.7 cm), edition of 8

Ed Ruscha, Twin Palms, 1965/2003

Gelatin silver print, Image: 7 ⅜ × 7 ⅜ inches (18.7 × 18.7 cm), edition of 8

Ed Ruscha, St. Tropez, 1965/2003 Gelatin silver print, Image: 7 ⅜ × 7 ⅜ inches (18.7 × 18.7 cm), edition of 8

Ed Ruscha, St. Tropez, 1965/2003

Gelatin silver print, Image: 7 ⅜ × 7 ⅜ inches (18.7 × 18.7 cm), edition of 8

Ed Ruscha, Palm Tree #3, 1971/2003 Gelatin silver print, Image: 10 × 10 inches (25.4 × 25.4 cm), edition of 8

Ed Ruscha, Palm Tree #3, 1971/2003

Gelatin silver print, Image: 10 × 10 inches (25.4 × 25.4 cm), edition of 8

Ed Ruscha, Spam, 1961/2003 Gelatin silver print, Image: 13 × 10 inches (33 × 25.4 cm), edition of 8

Ed Ruscha, Spam, 1961/2003

Gelatin silver print, Image: 13 × 10 inches (33 × 25.4 cm), edition of 8

Ed Ruscha, Knox Less, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 1962 Gelatin silver print, image: 4 ¾ × 5 ¾ inches (12.1 × 14.6 cm), unique© Ed Ruscha. Photo: © Douglas M. Parker Studio

Ed Ruscha, Knox Less, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 1962

Gelatin silver print, image: 4 ¾ × 5 ¾ inches (12.1 × 14.6 cm), unique
© Ed Ruscha. Photo: © Douglas M. Parker Studio

Ed Ruscha, Joe’s Plymouth, 1960 Gelatin silver print, image: 14 × 6 inches (35.6 × 15.2 cm), unique© Ed Ruscha. Photo: © Douglas M. Parker

Ed Ruscha, Joe’s Plymouth, 1960

Gelatin silver print, image: 14 × 6 inches (35.6 × 15.2 cm), unique
© Ed Ruscha. Photo: © Douglas M. Parker

About

Gagosian is pleased to present an exhibition of photographs by Ed Ruscha. Although most of the featured photographs were originally used in the creation of Ruscha’s books (1963–78), the artist has printed several new images from his numerous negatives and contact sheets in preparation for this exhibition.

Ed Ruscha began taking photographs while a student at the Chouinard School in Los Angeles in 1959. The artist’s conceptual use of photography in books takes its cue from the livres d’artiste made by such artists as Picasso, Matisse, and Chagall. However, Ruscha’s books mark a significant departure from traditional formats as they are assembled but not composed, clean but not slick, and were meant for broad distribution.

Ed Ruscha’s books document the artist’s surroundings and journeys “on the road” between 1963 and 1978. The first book, Twentysix Gasoline Stations, was inspired by a journey along Route 66 between Ruscha’s native Oklahoma and Los Angeles. Primarily visual, the books are composed of series of nondescript photographs that follow seemingly basic and random thematic guidelines such as “gasoline stations,” “apartment buildings,” “swimming pools,” “vinyl records,” “palm trees,” and even “burning small fires.”

These books marked the beginning of Ruscha’s conceptual foray into photographic documentation and book making, which has continued to be an important aspect of his body of work.

Black-and-white photograph: Donald Marron, c. 1984.

Donald Marron

Jacoba Urist profiles the legendary collector.

Alexander Calder poster for McGovern, 1972, lithograph

The Art History of Presidential Campaign Posters

Against the backdrop of the 2020 US presidential election, historian Hal Wert takes us through the artistic and political evolution of American campaign posters, from their origin in 1844 to the present. In an interview with Quarterly editor Gillian Jakab, Wert highlights an array of landmark posters and the artists who made them.

Ed Ruscha, At That, 2020, dry pigment and acrylic on paper.

“Things Fall Apart”: Ed Ruscha’s Swiped Words

Lisa Turvey examines the range of effects conveyed by the blurred phrases in recent drawings by the artist, detailing the ways these words in motion evoke the experience of the current moment.

Andy Warhol cover design for the magazine Aspen 1, no. 3.

Artists’ Magazines

Gwen Allen recounts her discovery of cutting-edge artists’ magazines from the 1960s and 1970s and explores the roots and implications of these singular publications.

A painting with gold frame by Louis Michel Eilshemius. Landscape with single figure.

Eilshemius and Me: An Interview with Ed Ruscha

Ed Ruscha tells Viet-Nu Nguyen and Leta Grzan how he first encountered Louis Michel Eilshemius’s paintings, which of the artist’s aesthetic innovations captured his imagination, and how his own work relates to and differs from that of this “Neglected Marvel.”

River Café menu with illustration by Ed Ruscha.

The River Café Cookbook

London’s River Café, a culinary mecca perched on a bend in the River Thames, celebrated its thirtieth anniversary in 2018. To celebrate this milestone and the publication of her cookbook River Café London, cofounder Ruth Rogers sat down with Derek Blasberg to discuss the famed restaurant’s allure.

News

Photo: Kate Simon

Artist Spotlight

Ed Ruscha

September 16–22, 2020

At the start of his artistic career, Ed Ruscha called himself an “abstract artist . . . who deals with subject matter.” Abandoning academic connotations that came to be associated with Abstract Expressionism, he looked instead to tropes of advertising and brought words—as form, symbol, and material—to the forefront of painting. Working in diverse media with humor and wit, he oscillates between sign and substance, locating the sublime in landscapes both natural and artificial. Ruscha’s formal experimentations and clever use of the American vernacular have evolved in form and meaning as technology alters the essence of human communication.

Photo: Kate Simon

Installation view, Ed Ruscha: Drum Skins, Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin, January 11–October 4, 2020. Artwork © Ed Ruscha

galleryplatform.la

Ed Ruscha
Drum Skins

May 28–June 30, 2020

Gagosian is pleased to present recent paintings by Ed Ruscha online for galleryplatform.laFifty years ago, Ruscha purchased a set of vellum drum skins from a leather shop in Los Angeles. He has continued to collect these vintage objects, and since 2011 he has used them as canvases for the works on view in his solo exhibition Drum Skins at the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin. 

Installation view, Ed Ruscha: Drum Skins, Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin, January 11–October 4, 2020. Artwork © Ed Ruscha