Ed Ruscha: édition en langue anglaise - Hardcover

Marshall, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0714839086 ISBN 13: 9780714839080

Publisher: Phaidon Press Ltd, 2003

Synopsis

Restlessly inventive, Ruscha has remained a step ahead and apart from the art trends and movements of his time. Pop Art, Conceptual Art, Surrealism, Photo-Realism, and today's renewed focus on painting resonate in a body of work that ultimately defies categorization. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1937, Ruscha lived in Oklahoma City until he moved permanently to Los Angeles in 1956, where he studied at the Chouinard Art Institute until 1960. Side jobs in typography and layout, a revelatory trip to Europe, and influential encounters with Jasper Johns' art contributed to an artistic vision attuned to the prosaic look and language of popular culture. By the early 1960s Ruscha was well known for his paintings, collages and printmaking, and for his association with the Ferus Gallery group, which also included artists Robert Irwin, Edward Moses, Ken Price and Edward Kienholz. He later achieved recognition for his paintings incorporating words and phrases and for his many photographic books. This monograph is organized in thematic chapters that follow the work roughly chronologically concluding with his "mirror mountains" works (shown at the Gagosian Gallery in NY in spring 2002). This organization brings to light the surprising diversity of Ruscha's work, while at the same time showing the recurrence of themes and styles throughout his career. Rather than focusing on a long, daunting scholarly essay illustrated by the artist's painting, this book is first and foremost about the work. Rather than using the paintings to illustrate his text, Richard Marshall writes his text to illustrate the paintings. This is obvious in the design of the book, which allows the work to speak for itself in plate sections.

About this title

Review:

"Organised thematically, this good-looking tome lets the work speak for itself. Richard Marshall keeps his copy brief; each section is introduced by an essay that mixes biography and art history with quotes from the artist. I've always admired Ruscha's work without really liking it. I'm completely converted."―Time Out

"Helping us to understand his career... is Marshall's superb, sympathetic, scrupulously researched and detailed text. Beautifully designed, illustrated and easy to follow, almost as if it were one of the artist's works, Phaidon's Ed Ruscha is like having a private retrospective between the covers of a book. As such, it is highly recommended."―The Oklahoman

About the Author:

Richard Marshall is an independent curator and critic who, during his twenty-year tenure as curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, worked extensively with Ruscha. He is the author of Edward Ruscha Los Angeles Apartments, and has published many books and exhibition catalogues on artists Jean-Michel Basquiat, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Louise Bourgeois, among others. In 2002 he curated the exhibition Edward Ruscha: Made in Los Angeles at the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid Author's Residence: New York, NY.

About this edition

• Publisher: Phaidon Press Ltd
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0714839086
• ISBN 13: 9780714839080
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 356