Ed Ruscha - Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Friday, October 17, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Anthony d'Offay, London; James Erskine Collection, Sydney; Private collection, New York
     

  • Exhibited

    Rome, Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo, 30 June - 3 October, 2004; Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 3 November, 2004 - 16 January, 2005; Ed Ruscha
     
    Please note that this work has been requested for loan to the upcoming Ed Ruscha retrospective, Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting, which will be held at the Hayward Gallery, London in October 2009.

  • Catalogue Essay

    You take one painting as a kind of question and then the answer to that would be, they’re look-alikes. They begin to look like one another and they do not look like one another, because they have to, or they’re not going to be a proper answer. And then, when you look at them, they’re no longer interpreted in a philosophical sense – or an apocalyptical sense. If you give the viewer something to compare, you don’t have to interpret. (Ed Ruscha, Press Release: Ed Ruscha Paintings, 5 February – 20 March,2008, Gagosian Gallery London)
     
    Although it is undeniable that the work of Ruscha has much in common with pop art and there is a very obvious influence of the pop movement to be found in his work, it would be too restricting to consider him only within that context. It is his playful use of irony, paradox and the ability to make juxtapositions so absurd that firmly set’s him apart from any movement. Not only therefore is he a West Coast maverick but a maverick of contemporary painting, communicating a vernacular language with a particular urban sentiment, relevant not only to the West Coast but all contemporary culture and imagery.
     
    When compared to artists such as Andy Warhol, and asked if his paintings were a ‘still life of our day?’ Ruscha replies ‘Well it might be. It’s popular culture, and for a long time it was ignored. And then when artists began
    to realize that you don’t just have to look at paint splashed on a canvas or flowers painted on a canvas-you know, there are other things in the world, too.’ (Edward Ruscha in interview with Susan Stamberg, Profile:The Paintings of Ed Ruscha, Leave Any Information at the Signal; Ed Ruscha, London 2002, p. 380)
     
    When attempting to understand the work of Edward Ruscha, one must note his move from Nebraska to Los Angeles to attend the Chouinard Art Institute in 1956 as the pivotal moment in his life and most certainly his
    artistic career. A deep-seeded attachment to American culture, is carried with Ruscha, displayed through his visual connotations playing with scale, perspective, depth, perception, language and its relationship to landscape.
    Whether natural or man-made, the landscape retains a constant presence in his paintings embodied in both a conceptual and visual nature.
     
    Encompassing photography, drawing, painting, and artist books, Ruscha's work holds the mirror up to the banality of urban life and gives order to the barrage of mass media-fed images and information that confront us daily.
    Ruscha's early career as a graphic artist continues to strongly influence his aesthetic and thematic approach. This particular lot, sees a shift in the role of signage in Ruscha’s work, with the image of the sign depicted removed of any ‘information’. Untitled seems to break away from the convention of Ruscha’s artistic mannerisms, although executed with the same pallette and exactitude as his older works, this work is presenting something
    without presenting anything at all, leaving the audience in a cyclical state of wonderment and confusion. The towering sign is silhouetted, turned into a negative of a sign playing on the notion of semiotics where the
    background with the impression of the road is the signifier and the image of the sign is the signified. The idea of this work acting as a negative makes it vaguely reminiscent of the work of Cindy Sherman, in particular Untitled Film Still #48, 1979. Both works encompass the idea of the American landscape and provide the viewer with the sense of space and the longing to be somewhere else. It is this sense of longing that appears frequently in the
    work of Ruscha, remembering that he is a West Coast migrant, we approach knowing that he represents the imagery as an outsider. West Coast America represents for Ruscha the idea of a dream, a desire to ‘make it’. This is a sentiment shared by other artist’s of his time who moved to LA to ignite their career, most famously David Hockney. This is perfectly embodied in an older series of works by Ruscha where he depicts the iconic Hollywood sign from a silhouetted reverse, as well as a series of photographic images titled Real Estate Opportunities, 1970. Ruscha’s work continues to present his audience with questions of societal belonging, done so with the simplest of imagery, Untitled is a subtle display of his ability to articulate with absolute poignancy.
     
    The most important thing is to believe in what you are doing, even if it's absurd. Most people's consciousness prevents them from doing what they should have blind faith about. (Ed Ruscha as quoted in: C. Fox, Studio International, n. 179, June 1970, pp. 281, 287)
     

  • Artist Biography

    Ed Ruscha

    American • 1937

    Quintessentially American, Ed Ruscha is an L.A.-based artist whose art, like California itself, is both geographically rooted and a metaphor for an American state of mind. Ruscha is a deft creator of photography, film, painting, drawing, prints and artist books, whose works are simultaneously unexpected and familiar, both ironic and sincere.

    His most iconic works are at turns poetic and deadpan, epigrammatic text with nods to advertising copy, juxtaposed with imagery that is either cinematic and sublime or seemingly wry documentary. Whether the subject is his iconic Standard Gas Station or the Hollywood Sign, a parking lot or highway, his works are a distillation of American idealism, echoing the expansive Western landscape and optimism unique to postwar America.

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324

Untitled

2004
Acrylic on canvas.
122.2 x 244.2 cm. (48 1/8 x 96 1/8 in).
Signed and dated 'Ed Ruscha 2004' on the reverse.

Estimate
£300,000 - 500,000 

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

18 Oct 2008, 7pm
London