New York: April 12, 2005 Edward Tyler Nahem Fine Art, L.L.C. is pleased to present Ed Ruscha: Selected Works, on view from May 6 through June 30, 2005. The exhibition will feature over twenty paintings, drawings and photographs representing forty years work.
Ruscha, who has been selected to represent the United States in the upcoming Venice Biennale, is one of the most influential artists to emerge out of the 1960s. From his early documentary-style photographs and commercially inspired paintings and drawings, to the more recent paintings of words superimposed over images of mountains, Ruscha's work has continually addressed the symbolic power of words and imagery. Although deceptively simple at first, the works challenge the viewer to rethink assumptions about the relationship between words and images, and the suggestiveness of both. This exhibition will survey the varied ways in which the artist has used language and common objects to create a body of work that at once references folk, conceptual and pop art.
In the 1997 painting Stupid Idiot, a blank television screen casts a white glow over a dark, empty room. The desolateness of the image is compounded by the ambiguity of the title. Who is the stupid idiot? Where is the stupid idiot? Why is the painting called stupid Idiot? Also included in the exhibition will be important drawings from the 1960s including Dimple and Honk, 1970s pill drawings Anti-Depressants and 3 Seconals, 3 Darvons, a 1980s painting A.M., and a more recent Metro Plot.
An illustrated catalogue with text by Hal Foster will accompany this exhibition.
For further information please contact the gallery. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 10am-5pm, and Saturday by appointment.
