Ed Ruscha - Contemporary Art Part I New York Thursday, November 15, 2007 | Phillips

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  • Provenance


    Ronald Greenberg Gallery, NewYork; Collection of David and Gladyce Begelman, Beverly Hills; James Corcoran Gallery, Los Angeles

  • Exhibited


    San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, March 25 - May 23, 1982; NewYork,
    Whitney Museum of American Art, July 7 - September 5, 1982; and Los Angeles County
    Museum of Art, 1982, The Works of Edward Ruscha; NewYork,Whitney Museum of American
    Art, June 24 - September 26, 2004; Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art, October
    17, 2004 - January 17, 2005; andWashington, National Gallery of Art, February 13 - May 30,
    2005 Cotton Puffs, Q-Tips, Smoke and Mirrors: The Drawings of Ed Ruscha

  • Literature


    P. Anbinder, ed., The Works of Edward Ruscha, San Francisco, 1982, Plate 66,
    p. 93 (illustrated in black and white); C. Butler and M. Rowell, Cotton Puffs, Q-Tips, Smoke
    and Mirrors: The Drawings of Ed Ruscha, NewYork, 2004, Cat. No. 119, p. 161 (illustrated)
    This work will be included in the forthcoming Edward Ruscha Catalogue Raisonné of Works
    on Paper. Volume II 1970-1979, edited by Dr. Rainer Crone and Dr. Petrus Schaesberg.

  • Catalogue Essay

    In the early 1970’s, Ed Ruscha was experimenting with unconventional materials such as rose petal stains, coffee, liqueur, petroleum jelly and even blood on paper in place of traditional inks or paint. One of his most famous uses of alternative materials Chocolate Room, an installation consisting of 360 sheets of paper silk-screened with chocolate, was exhibited at the 35th Venice Biennale in 1970. Choice of material in Ruscha’s work such as “Stains,” the Chocolate Room, the gunpowder drawings, and numerous other works involving found and organic substances stem from an inherently American idea of exploration and an appreciation for the connotations of the materials.Tobacco and gunpowder in particular bring in associations of cowboys and theWildWest, and perhaps reference the spread of American civilization through globalization.

  • 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.

    View More Works

50

Double Spread

1973
Diptych: gunpowder and tobacco on paper.
Each: 23 x 29 in. (58.4 x 73.7 cm); overall installed dimensions: 23 x 62 in. (58.4 x 157.5 cm).
Signed and dated “Edward Ruscha 1973” on the reverse of each.

Estimate
$500,000 - 700,000 

Sold for $541,000

Contemporary Art Part I

15 Nov 2007, 7pm
New York