Ed Ruscha: Road Tested

by Michael Auping, Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha (Artist)

Since his first road trip in 1956, driving from Oklahoma City to Los Angeles, Ed Ruscha has continued to muse on America as seen from the "I like being in the car, and seeing things from that vantage point," he has said. "Sometimes I give myself assignments to go out on the road and explore different ideas. My books are an example of that." Consisting of around 75 works spanning the artist's entire career, Ed Road Tested includes many of the famous aforementioned artist's books, including Twenty-Six Gasoline Stations , Real Estate Opportunities , Some Los Angeles Apartments , Thirty-Four Parking Lots and the groundbreaking artist's book Every Building on the Sunset Strip ; some of Ruscha's most iconic paintings, such as the "Standard Stations" and the "Hollywood Signs," as well as paintings inspired by street names and road signs; and his exploration of the topography of greater Los Angeles in paintings that depict aerial grids of the city, as well as various southern California horizons and sunsets. Also examined here is the rarely seen Ruscha film Miracle (1975), which tells the story of a mechanic whose obsessive repair of the carburetor on a 1965 Mustang dooms his date with a beautiful woman. The first-ever treatment of a primary theme in the artist's career, Road Tested at last gives Ed Ruscha his own road show.
Ed Ruscha (born 1937) has made pioneering work in the media of painting, printmaking, drawing, bookmaking, photography and film since 1958. Associated in the early 1960s with the Ferus Gallery, Ruscha was included in Walter Hopps' landmark Pop art show New Painting of Common Objects , at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1962. His painting career was recently surveyed in Ed Fifty Years of Painting (D.A.P., 2010).

Genres: Art

128 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Michael Auping is chief curator at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas.

Reviews

[Blog on Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1956, Ed Ruscha and his high school buddy Mason WIlliams drove west from their Oklahoma City digs to discover the creative frontier that was pre-60’s L.A. Williams famously went on to become a musician (“Classical Gas”) and later a staff member of the famed Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, while Ruscha emerged as one of the most important modern artists of our generation.

In “Ed Ruscha: Road Tested,” it is revealed that it was that same road trip that first formed the artist’s fascination with the American highways and images from the road. Published as a companion piece for an exhibition at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, (organized earlier this year by Michael Auping) “Road Tested” is the first book that compiles and thematically connects Ruscha’s work – from the original Royal (typewriter) Road Test to the many depictions of gas stations (including his most famous piece, “Standard Station on Fire”) to the many self-published books Ruscha assembled in the mid-60s, like “Twenty Six Gas Stations”, “Thirty Four Parking Lots” and our all-time favorite, “Every Building on the Sunset Strip: 1966.”

Along the way, it becomes obvious that Ruscha’s fascination with the road is second only to his well-known focus on wordplay as the basis for large swaths of his catalog. The second half of the book features great mid-period pieces in the graphic language motif where streets are used as backgrounds (“Talk Radio”, “Ice Princess”) or street names are specifically called out (“A Blvd. Called Sunset” and “La Brea, Sunset, Orange, De Longpre”). Like most exhibitions, there are a few omissions including “Tires” from the Archi-Props series, Honk and 1998’s Speedo prints, but overall the collection holds together nicely as a topical exhibition and book.

“Road Tested” includes an interview with the artist on the subject at hand, various essays, Ruscha’s complete exhibition history as well as a nifty copy of the road map flyer from the original exhibit (denoting where each piece of art is from geographically). As a stylistic slice from one artist’s greater body of work, the book succeeds on its own terms. Hopefully, someone will schedule a followup on another of Ruscha’s passions of which there would also be an ample body of work – Hollywood.

[Shelf Magazine]

In 1956, Ed Ruscha and his high-school friend, the future musician Mason Williams, drove from Oklahoma City to Los Angeles in a 1950 Ford Sedan. … For Ruscha in particular, the trip was seminal in putting his career in motion, not only literally, but conceptually.

View pieces featured in the book in our June/July 2011 issue. http://www.shelfmediagroup.com/staff_...

[Catherine Corman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ruscha has often said he doesn't want to write a book, just make one

-Michael Auping, Ed Ruscha: Road Tested