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2/6/2006

Two Artists - Two Worlds

Mendenhall Sobieski Gallery, Pasadena

The drawings of
Ed Ruscha and Robert Williams
Guest curated by Dr. Paul Karlstrom

Envisioning the future of the Mendenhall Sobieski Gallery (MSG), we look forward to presenting guest-curated exhibitions that we believe can make a difference through contemporary art. Our objective is to identify ideas and connections that have the potential to expand our understanding of the dynamics of creative expression. This goal necessarily requires going beyond the realm of commerce and a clearly delineated roster of artists. Our aim is to reach for culturally significant and thought-provoking experiences.

With this presentation of drawings by two postmodern masters who seamlessly integrate fine art and pop imagery, the Gallery is taking a significant inaugural step in that direction. Dr. Paul Karlstrom, former west coast director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art, accepted our invitation to bring together two seemingly very different artists, Ed Ruscha and Robert Williams, who nonetheless are united by mutual interests and respect. We agreed with Paul that this juxtaposition should prove both provocative and enlightening. With the artists’ agreement to participate, the endeavor was launched.

We approached our exhibition with the notion of its being an offshoot of a museum retrospective, existing in our site outside the din of the central Los Angeles art scene. Though narrower in scope than a museum exhibition, it is marked by depth and significant detail, as ripe with discovery as an enthralling miniature. Each artist made a preliminary selection of works--Ruscha’s spanning the years 1962 to the present, those of Williams reaching back to 1990--from which the curator and the Gallery selected the present show.

The artists’ contrasting styles engage in a dialogue that’s all the more fascinating because of what they share over and above their friendship and mutual professional respect: each one articulates ideas in an individualized surrealist pictorial world, deploying wily wit and irreverence that can be recognized as a hallmark of Los Angeles art. They are, of course, two of the most iconic and important visual artists of Southern California’s mythic popular culture landscape. We are honored to introduce what we believe is a unique perspective on their bodies of work.

Finally, we owe a special debt of gratitude to the artists’ primary representatives, Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York (Robert Williams) and Gagosian Gallery, New York and Los Angeles (Ed Ruscha). Without their generous cooperation, this exhibition would not have been possible.

Ted Mendenhall and Jamie Sobieski - Directors, MSG

Catalog available

Image: Ed Ruscha, Space for Message (Your Space) 14 7/8" x 15 1/8", Acrylic on Paper, 1991.

Reception Saturday, June 3, 7 - 9 pm

Mendenhall Sobieski Gallery
40 Mills Place Pasadena, CA 91105
Tuesday-Friday, 10am to 6pm
Saturday, Noon to 6pm
Sunday, Noon to 5pm;
Closed Monday.

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