If you know about Ed Ruscha it's probably because of his big, graphic, super-charged color litho prints of his "Standard Gas Station" drawings. Very graphic. Lots of diagonals. Rich color. One trick ponyistic approach. But what you may not know is that he made lots and lots of very, very boring photographs; mostly in black and white, of very, very boring things and then put them together in small books. The pacing and pairing of images in the books are not helpful in igniting any more interest or curiosity than the prints laid out flat on the walls in perfectly square museum frames. Not even the perfectly cut matts could imbue them with any sort of energy or allure.
I went to see the show because I'd seen the (non-photographic) big lithographic prints in shows from time to time and wondered what his photography would be like. Hmmm. Imagine putting an old Yashica twin lens camera on the front of a robot and then programming the robot to learn what the least interesting visual construct might be for human beings and then to pursue endless numbers of these images. One book and show contained something like 48 aerial photographs of parking lots attached to stores or office buildings. Ed Ruscha did not take the photographs but instead hired a photographer to do so from a helicopter and then used the images for his combinative works.
All the parking lots are about the same; mostly oblique shots, all in black and white. All well printed in the square format. None are remotely interesting. None have "hidden messages," stand out features or even a "where's Waldo" spice of antagonism to them.
Ruscha later applied the same raw talent to Hollywood swimming pools but in this collection stepped outside his decades old comfort zone to create each swimming pool shot in painful 1970's color.
I was so embarrassed. I had gotten good night's sleep the night before I saw the show but I made the mistake of pausing too long in front of a collection of photographs of the fronts of strip mall stores. I must have nodded off around one p.m. and napped (miraculously, standing up like a sleeping horse) for the better part of an hour before a security guard came to see why I had been motionless for so long. He jostled me awake and I ran from the building so as to take no risk that the sheer boredom of the Ruscha show might paralyze me for all time. Having escaped I can only say that it is possible to take the construction of pure boredom and, through relentless manifesto-ing, contrive to make it into an academic art form.
Rating? As many thumbs down as I could possibly muster. It's not that I have trouble understanding the context or intention for the "works" it's more that I think whoever thought to curate this monstrosity of soul sucking emptiness should be relegated to helping kindergartners learn to nap via art appreciation. This show gives kindling to the conservative republican spirit of despising all modern and academic art. If they ever find out Ruscha got grants to make this stuff all hell will break loose, and then real artists will have an even harder time finding funding or patronage.....
Skip. Or take a pillow.
13 comments:
At least it was free. You got what you paid for.
At least it was free. You certainly got what you paid for.
Like most of the recent MFA grads banal attempts at photographic art contained within http://lenscratch.com . "Monstrosity of soul sucking emptiness", I love it!
Mike. It was so bad they should have paid me to attend. Or at least compensated me for time lost..... As for "free" I'll be looking a bit closer at my property taxes for the year......
So when I'm browsing the 'artists books' section at the state library should I go for Dieter Roth over Ed Ruscha?
How refreshing to have an honest review. Whenever I see a sow like that the frugal part of me winces at the waste of materials and the opportunity of the venue to show something worthwhile.
That's the problem with you Kirk, you seem to have this compelling need to go out and make visually interesting pictures and that's so er 20th century as far as the art establishment is concerned! No doubt Ruscha would say that his pictures reflect the banality of modern existence but it also neatly illustrates (for me at least) one of the problems of conceptual art from the infamous Duchamp urinal onwards: once you have made your statement that seems to be it, and then they just do it over and over again, ad nauseam. Contrast that with a great work of art such as a Shakespeare play or a Rothko and every age seems to put its own interpretation on it. Still you have to remember that there is a whole cottage industry out there of people writing dissertations on this stuff and interpreting it for us! For my sins I also have an interest in literature, so I attended an extra-mural lecture on English Literature at my local university given by a visiting professor. All I can say is that it was completely incomprehensible, with loaded pseudo-scientific terminology, but the reality was that he was actually saying nothing new and he clearly had nothing to say! Contrast that with say a lecture given by the great critic F.R. Leavis in Cambridge in the 1970s where you could take a person off the street and they would understand every word of it, even if they weren't remotely interested in what he had to say. Seems to be the way the art world is going these days. All I can say to creative artists is f**k the art world and carry on creating, we need you more than ever. There you are, I feel better now I've said all that! You really shouldn't wind me up like this, Kirk!
Perhaps the artist's intent was to suck souls, glaze eyes, or cure insomnia. In that case, I'd say he's a genius! :)
I like what you guys are usually up too. This type of clever work and exposure!
Keep up the very good works guys I've you guys to
my personal blogroll.
I couldn't help but smile at this post.
My wife occasionally reminds me of one particular trip we made to DC, because of a show at one of the museums, the Philips, I believe. We noticed a small gallery room hung with the "Equivalents" photographs by Alfred Stieglitz. I knew that Stiegletz was a "big deal," (perhaps because of his being married to Georgia O'Keefe, who in my estimation IS a "big deal"). And quoting from Wikipedia, "They are generally recognized as the first photographs intended to free the subject matter from literal interpretation, and, as such, are some of the first completely abstract photographic works of art."
As we walked out of the room, I commented dismissively to my wife, "Stieglitz sucks."
"Ed Ruscha did not take the photographs but instead hired a photographer to do so from a helicopter and then used the images for his combinative works."
If these photos were merely material (i.e. mechanical sketches) for later works in other media, then why on earth are they displaying them as finished artworks? Not every image works in both photography and drawing/painting.
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