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Olivier Malingue is pleased to announce ‘Artwork in Focus’, the second chapter of the gallery’s ‘In Focus’ series. Every week our website will present a viewing room featuring an artwork available for sale. Each chapter of this series will include visuals and information about the piece presented, giving insights on artists and artworks that have left a significant mark on modern and contemporary art. For all enquiries about available artworks, please email sales@oliviermalingue.com or click on the enquire button below.
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Ed RUSCHAb. 1937
Ghost Station, 2011Mixografia inkless print on white handmade paper
Signed and dated lower right: Ed Ruscha 2011, numbered lower left: 39/85
Edition of 85 + 25 APUnframed: 70 x 118 cm (27 ½ x 46 ½ in)
Framed: 74.6 x 122.2 x 3.4 cm (29 ⅜ x 48 ⅛ x 1 ⅜ in) -
Throughout the 1960s, Ed Ruscha produced and self published a series of photographic books surveying different features of the American landscape. The titles of Ruscha’s books are self explanatory and descriptive of the content, for example: Some Los Angeles Apartments (1965), Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966), Nine Swimming Pools and a Broken Glass (1968), and Real Estate Opportunities (1970).
The first book published in the series, under Ruscha’s own publishing company National Excelsior Press, was titled Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1963) and was priced at $3.50. The book contains twenty-six photographs of gas stations with captions describing the location and brand. The book wasn’t largely accepted until it started to achieve cult status in the 1980s, and its value as an artist book was realised.
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The original photograph was taken by Ruscha while driving on Route 66 from Los Angeles to Oklahoma City. On that occasion the artist focused on gas stations contoured by sky, land and nothing else. Ruscha later described the appearance of gas stations on the road “like a musical rhythm to me – cultural belches in the landscape”.
Today, the original company that owned this Standard Oil station which was named ‘Standard Oil Company and Trust’ has been split, and each of its ‘shares’ has taken different names, including Mobil, Chevron, and Texaco - to name just a few. The company was originally funded by John D. Rockefeller, who within 10 years from 1863 managed to control 95% of the refined oil circulating in the United States.
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Ed Ruscha’s imagery of the gas station, which first appeared in his aforementioned 1963 publication, became an iconic reference in post-war art. The photograph of the Standard station taken in 1963 inspired Ruscha to create the oil on canvas, Standard Station, Amarillo, Texas (1963), which is part of the collection of The Dallas Museum of Art. With a pictorial language that falls between Pop and Conceptual, this oil painting presents only one of the multiple forms of media that Ruscha has employed to portray the Standard station.
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While the painting itself was preceded by studies realised in tempera and ink on paper and exploring various colour combinations, the first Standard Station screen-print dates back to 1966. In an edition of 50, Ruscha maintains the white station with red details but opts for a softer background, with a light blue to orange gradient. The 1966 edition was followed by other colour variations in 1969.
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The artwork Ghost Station (2011) presents the same subject, encapsulated in a different medium. This work was produced by Ed Ruscha in collaboration with the Los Angeles based workshop Mixografia. The Mixografia printmaking technique is unique and allows the creation of three-dimensional embossed prints with strong texture and surface details. The studio produces copper printing plates based on artist’s maquettes.
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Once the copper plate is ready, a moist paper pulp, handmade from pure cotton fibers, is pressed over it. The paper and the copper printing plate are afterwards run through a press under high pressure: the moist paper registers every minimal detail of the printing plate. After the print has run through the press it is pulled from the plate and let to dry. Once the edition is complete, each print is numbered and signed by the artist. With the image embossed in Ghost Station, Ed Ruscha has been able to frame time in a way that few other artists have managed to do.
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BiographyIn 1956, Ruscha moved from Oklahoma City to Los Angeles, to attend the Chouinard Art Institute where he trained as a commercial illustrator. After graduating in 1959, Ruscha began to work in advertising, and developed his own specific formulas of scale, abstraction, and viewpoint, which later became a signature feature of his painting and photographic style. Throughout the 1960s, Ruscha focused on producing photographic books. Starting from the early 1970s, Ruscha started to work with other media, including printmaking, and throughout the following decades he explored different techniques such as screenprint, lithography, and etching.Ruscha combines great intuition in terms of content and media, and devotes a high degree of attention to words or phrases in his works. This feature became a distinctive characteristic of Ruscha’s pictorial style, which can sometimes appear sinister or sardonic, but is the result of accurate calculations involving both visual perspective and the meaning of the words used. Today, at 82, Ruscha works every day in his studio in Culver City (Los Angeles), and is still devoted to exploring the power and fascination words can exercise within his practice.
ARTWORK IN FOCUS: ED RUSCHA 'GHOST STATION', 2011
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