Ed Ruscha’s Mountain paintings encoded with their trademark cryptic text
PAINTING ED RUSCHA - TI-IE MOUNTAINS lnverleith House, Royal Botanic Garden, 12 Aug-14 Oct.
During the dark ages, when the iron fist of Margaret Thatcher ruled the country, one artist managed to make me laugh. If this sounds trivial, like dancing on the deck of the Titanic as frozen seas swelled, it wasn’t. With everyone else scampering around gamely trying to defend themselves against the insidious evils of free enterprise, it was a blessed relief occasionally to enjoy a chortle of absurdist laughter. Ed Ruscha was the man, and the painting was, I think, of the LA County Museum of Contemporary Art on fire. It’s a great painting, one of hope and humour. When I find the art world getting me down, I think of it and a smile crosses my face.
Nearly all of Ruscha’s work is filled with a cool, deadpan humour. Although he’s a 605 contemporary of many of the classic American pop artists, Ruscha’s works have always revealed a more down-at-heel fascination with the American dream. His paintings and influential photographic books are filled with mundane pictures of gas stations and suburban homes. When Ruscha did Hollywood, instead of going for the stars and diamonds, he painted a picture of the back of the famous LA hillside sign. He also once produced a book
SCULPTURE
entitled Twenty-six gasoline stations which was of . . . well, you guessed it.
Technically, his paintings have always utilised a formally varied palette. His series of plank format landscapes, with simple divisions of sky and land and amusing lines of text were prominent during the 705. In one typically cinematic wide-screen panorama, the isolated text ‘home' juts out from the curved horizon on the right hand side. On the far left, a cluster of potential threats - poison, explosions, disease, wolves - hover ominously. More recently he has produced evocative, elusive monochrome paintings of silhouetted objects, often overlaid with cryptic texts. One of these majestic paintings Jumbo features the hazy shape of an elephant struggling to walk uphill. Its cumbersome determination is strangely affecting and touching.
Like the arrival of Jeff Koons in Edinburgh for the Festival, the presence of an Ed Ruscha exhibition is a welcome international serving for Festival goers. At lnverleith House, he will be displaying a series of paintings which are based on the motif of a mountain. Encoded with his trademark cryptic texts, they too will no doubt make a virtue of existing in a kind of cognitive state of flux, where meaning is never stable.
(John Beagles)
FRANZ WEST - MEETING
POINTS
Royal Botanic Garden, 12 Aug—1 2
Oct.
Flatus by Franz West
The words “please do not touch' more often than not accompany gallery exhibits. Under the vigilant eye of the gallery attendant. viewers have to be content with just looking. Austrian artist Franz West. however. favours a more tactile approach. West is one of Europe's leading contemporary sculptors and since the 708. has been creating hands-on. interactive work. His early sculptures (PaBstU’ckes) allowed the viewer to wear, lift or carry them around the gallery space. In the 808. he began working with metal, producing his trademark furniture. Exhibiting widely in Europe during that decade. he represented Austria at the Venice Biennale in 1990. And since the mid 1990s. he has turned his attention to large-scale formats. as well as creating sculpture for the outdoors. In the magnificent setting of the Royal Botanic Garden — his first ever show in Scotland — West will be installing four aluminium sculptures. two of them in water. two on land. The latter allows visitors to touch or
74 THE LIST FESTIVAL GUIDE 9-15 Aug 2001
sit upon them. So what of their shape? Well, to put it bluntly. the forms are both phallic and faecal. Ranging from F/arus. a bronze, cigar- shaped sculpture placed upright in the pond to the brown and white swirly forms of Meeting Points 7 and 2. West's deliberate use of obtrusively bright. artificial colours ensures that they are far from inconspicuous.
'The forms of the sculptures are not the result of a long chain of thinking, but rather something that instinctively deeply satisfies me.’ says West. 'When I made the works. I hoped they would clash with nature but when I stood and looked back, I was shocked to find that they looked like the plants and flowers in the garden.‘
Whether complementing or clashing with the natural environment. West’s unusual sculptures may well have met their match with the garden's wealth of weird and wonderful species.
(Helen Monaghan)
I Ed Ruscha A Scottish first for the seminal Los Angeles artist Ed Ruscha who will be showing a series of paintings overlain with cryptic text. See preview. left. lnverleith House, Royal Botanic Garden, 12 Aug-I4 Oct.
I Sebastiao Salgado: Migrations A compassionate portrayal of the world's population of refugees by Brazilian photographer. Sebastiao Salgado. City Art Centre, until 2 Sep.
I Jeff Koons: Easyfun - Ethereal While not a patch on his quirky sculptures, Koon's playful paintings are still worth a look. See review, right. Fruitmarket Gallery, until 15 Sep.
I Chris Cunningham Two video works by commercial video maker and artist Chris Cunningham. Not for the faint-hearted. Edinburgh College of Art, until 26 Aug.
I Josef Albers: Prints
1 91 6-1 976 Celebrating the work of German artist Josef Albers. images from Homage to the Square are shown alongside lesser known works. photographs and photo-collages. Edinburgh Printmakers, 11 Aug—21 Sep.
I Rembrandt’s Women Revealing the women in Rembrandt's life and his unique depiction of the female form, a major exhibition of paintings, intimate sketches and etchings drawn from collections around the world. National Gallery Of Scotland, until 2 Sep.
I Sean Scully A Scottish debut for internationally renowned Dublin-born artist Sean Scully featuring a small group of paintings and recent works on paper. See review, right. lng/eby Gallery, until 75 Sep.
I Roland Penrose and Lee Miller Shedding light on one the most fascinating artistic partnerships of the 20th century. the Penrose and Miller exhibition is a must-see. Dean Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, until 9 Sep. I Patricia Macdonald - Alr Works Beautifully realised aerial photographs revealing both the beauty and destruction of the natural environment. See review. right. Talbot Rice Gallery, until 7 Sep.