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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming Edward Ruscha Catalo gue Raisonné of Paintings Volume Three: 1983-1987. Since 1959, Ruscha has been a master at using language and image, and his best-known works combine the two in compelling ways. His works are not only beautifully realized, but also offer insightful commentary on society and its mores, often using humor to disguise their deeper intent. Ruscha speaks from a uniquely American perspective, one that both embraces and satirizes its qualities and prejudices.
We Would Have A Travel Agency Except No One In This Town Travels is from a body of work that began in the late 1970's, in which the artist paints text over a panoramic landscape. Typically, the landscapes have low horizon lines and gorgeously painted skies, ranging from hot reds and glowing oranges, to cool nocturnal blues, as in the current lot. Ruscha's landscapes can be linked to the grand tradition of the sublime landscape, and his depiction of a dreamy sunrise, framed elegantly with foliages on the edges, is an evocative, albeit decidedly minimal treatment of the theme.
Ruscha is a master of confounding expectations. Firstly, he juxtaposes the alarm-red letters with the serene blues of the sky, giving the painting a decidedly surreal visual punch. The second jolt comes from the text itself; once one has accepted that the sky contains a message, one expects the ALL CAPITALS text to be either profound or alarming, only to find that the artist is playfully subverting the notion of art as a high-minded enterprise by illustrating a joke. What appears to be a simple one-liner, in the hands of Ruscha, goes much deeper. Ruscha not only is playing visual provocateur, but is also expressing larger truths about the American psyche.
We Would Have A Travel Agency... conjures up the sentiments of small-town America, with its homespun wisdom and down-home charm. If noone travels, it is because perhaps there is no need to do so; everything that the inhabitants in Ruscha's America have everything they need. By illustrating the text with a serene and wide open landscape, Ruscha seems to be aligning himself with a simpler way of American life, one in which landscape and nature dominate, and the busy cultural life of the city is nowhere to be found.
At the same time, Ruscha is good-naturedly poking fun at the provincial and isolationist nature of America. In certain parts of the country, travelling is not only rare, but looked upon with suspicion. Whether Ruscha is embracing a mythical American way of life, or satirizing a provincial, small-town mentality, or both, is up to the viewer to decide.
With its innovative blending of language and image, We Would Have A Travel Agency... reverberates humor, irony and nostalgia, in a way that makes Ruscha one of the most astute and intelligent artist's of his time.
We Would Have A Travel Agency Except No One In This Town Travels is from a body of work that began in the late 1970's, in which the artist paints text over a panoramic landscape. Typically, the landscapes have low horizon lines and gorgeously painted skies, ranging from hot reds and glowing oranges, to cool nocturnal blues, as in the current lot. Ruscha's landscapes can be linked to the grand tradition of the sublime landscape, and his depiction of a dreamy sunrise, framed elegantly with foliages on the edges, is an evocative, albeit decidedly minimal treatment of the theme.
Ruscha is a master of confounding expectations. Firstly, he juxtaposes the alarm-red letters with the serene blues of the sky, giving the painting a decidedly surreal visual punch. The second jolt comes from the text itself; once one has accepted that the sky contains a message, one expects the ALL CAPITALS text to be either profound or alarming, only to find that the artist is playfully subverting the notion of art as a high-minded enterprise by illustrating a joke. What appears to be a simple one-liner, in the hands of Ruscha, goes much deeper. Ruscha not only is playing visual provocateur, but is also expressing larger truths about the American psyche.
We Would Have A Travel Agency... conjures up the sentiments of small-town America, with its homespun wisdom and down-home charm. If noone travels, it is because perhaps there is no need to do so; everything that the inhabitants in Ruscha's America have everything they need. By illustrating the text with a serene and wide open landscape, Ruscha seems to be aligning himself with a simpler way of American life, one in which landscape and nature dominate, and the busy cultural life of the city is nowhere to be found.
At the same time, Ruscha is good-naturedly poking fun at the provincial and isolationist nature of America. In certain parts of the country, travelling is not only rare, but looked upon with suspicion. Whether Ruscha is embracing a mythical American way of life, or satirizing a provincial, small-town mentality, or both, is up to the viewer to decide.
With its innovative blending of language and image, We Would Have A Travel Agency... reverberates humor, irony and nostalgia, in a way that makes Ruscha one of the most astute and intelligent artist's of his time.