calendario eventi  :: 

X

4/6/2013

Ed Ruscha

Museum Brandhorst, Munich

BOOKS & PAINTINGS

Ed Ruscha, born in 1937, draws his aesthetic inspiration from the mass media and films as well as the special urbanistic features of Los Angeles. He paints company trademarks, petrol stations and department stores in his own stylised manner, to which he then adds everyday objects, landscapes, logos, slogans or individual words. In this way, Ruscha looks into the question as to what extent specific associations can be evoked using typography, shape and colour. In addition to his paintings with industrial buildings or words are his books. Since the 1960s, the artist himself has been producing, publishing and marketing his slim books, most of which comprise a series of black-and-white photographs together with titles and names of locations. Images become objects, the book becomes an image, words become signs. Ruscha’s works dissolve the boundaries between genres. His central theme is the relation between words and images.

This aspect also determines the new presentation of the collection in the Museum Brandhorst, centred on the three new acquisitions ‘Old Book Then’ (2011), ‘Old Book Today’ (2011–2012) and ‘Old Book With Wormholes’ (2012). These three major momento mori images are supplemented by eights smaller paintings and five photographs that the artist presented the Udo and Anette Brandhorst Foundation. Together with Ruscha’s own publications (which are also partly gifts) the works displayed form a cohesive thematic complex, spanning a period of fifty years, and are an impressive addition to the large number of artists’ books already in the Brandhorst Collection.

BOOKS & CO

Thirtyfour Parking Lots (1967). The series has now been continued to include On the Road (2009). Although Ruscha’s books cannot be attributed to any conventional genre such as documentation, reportage or art book, the response to them was quite extraordinary. The artist advanced to a kind of leading figure, especially in connection with ‘appropriation art’ in which other works are cited. This is reflected in the plethora of books. These range from satirising imitations and the ironic continuation of a particular topic, to copies of typography and design. Ruscha’s indifference and demonstrative neutrality with regard to the selection of subjects has, however, occasionally been replaced by demonstrations of political awareness and commitment by a younger generation of artists. This still leaves the question unanswered as to what motivated this lasting reception to Ruscha’s epochal books. One of the extensive publications that accompanies the exhibition attempts to provide an answer.

Tine Nehler M.A.
Head of Press Department
Pinakotheken im Kunstareal | Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen
Kunstareal | Barer Straße 29 | D 80799 Munich T + 49.89.23805-1321 | F + 49.89.23805-1304 e-mail: presse@museum-brandhorst.de

Press Preview: 04 June 2013, 03 p.m.

Opening: 05 June 2013, 07 p.m.

Museum Brandhorst
Theresienstrasse 35a, Munich
Hours: Daily except MO 10.00 - 18.00; THU 10.00 - 20.00
Regular admission: 7,00 €;
Concessions: 5,00 €;
Sunday admission: 1,00 €
Day pass: 12,00 €
for the Museum Brandhorst, all three Pinakothek Museums, the Sammlung Schack and the Branch Galleries of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, no special exhibitions, no further Concessions
5-visit pass: 29,00 €
for the Museum Brandhorst, all three Pinakothek Museums, the Sammlung Schack and the Branch Galleries of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, no special exhibitions, no further concessions
Annual pass: 90,00 €; concessions: 60,00 €
for the Museum Brandhorst, all three Pinakothek Museums, the Sammlung Schack and the Branch Galleries of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen
Audioguide (German, English, Italian); MON - SAT: free; SO: 4,50 €

stampa

permanent link