Curated by Margit Rowell; Sylvia Wolf
Concurrent exhibitions treat aspects of Ed Ruscha’s work that remain unexamined even after two recent retrospectives. Margit Rowell’s “Cotton Puffs, Q-tips®, Smoke and Mirrors” gathers 204 works on paper in this first large survey of his drawings, from his images of LA’s iconic signs and less iconic apartment buildings to his finespun word drawings. Downstairs, Sylvia Wolf presents fifty of the artist’s vintage prints and studies, including his amateurish snapshots from Conceptual beachheads like Twentysix Gasoline Stations, to establish the discreteness of Ruscha’s photographic practice and to complicate his claim that he is “not really a photographer.”
“Cotton Puffs” travels to MOCA, Los Angeles, Oct. 17–Jan. 17, 2005; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Feb. 13, 2005–May 30, 2005.
