Art, Artists, Features, LA Iconoclasts

Information at The Signal: A Conversation With Ed Ruscha

ED RUSCHA is as much a part of LA as its sunsets, freeways, wildfires, and beaches. Lest we limit him as a regionalist, let us remember that California itself is a slippery character, an idea as much as a place. As the artist incisively observed in one of his late 70s pastels, “Hollywood is a verb.” Ruscha moved to LA from Oklahoma to attend Chouinard Art Institute in 1956. While a student there he fell in with what he jokingly refers to as the “wrong crowd”: artists like Billy Al Bengston and Robert Irwin, pioneers of LA Pop and the Finish Fetish movement, which appropriated the seductive sheen of Southern California topography, car culture, and surf culture. Ruscha and his colleagues were key progenitors of California cool. Working in relative isolation compared to New York, the contemporary art center of the 60s and 70s, Ruscha is a prolific producer of paintings, drawings, photographs, and books that draw directly and indirectly from LA as a subject, and have played a critical role in creating its cultural mystique today. He spoke to Fabrik about the germinal days of the LA art scene and his evolving relationship with the city.

Fabrik: Did you feel like LA was an outpost when you started working here? Like there was a small group of artists, intellectuals, filmmakers, and writers that were in on some sort of secret?

Ruscha: LA is such a huge megalopolis that I need to centralize my thinking about it. I am out in Venice now, but I “grew up” in Silver Lake, Echo Park, and Downtown. My deeper feelings are centered in Echo Park and Hollywood.

It was a much smaller art world in a much slower city back in the 60s. I went to art school for about four years thinking I would be a sign painter or work in advertising, but I set off into fine art instead. The pendulum swung to the other side and I never really looked back. LA was like the Australia of the art world, it was way out there. But there were some key people here that were connected to the art world at large. One was Walter Hopps, the former director of Pasadena Art Museum. He created the first major show of Marcel Duchamp’s work. The artistic activity back then is only magnified today. It’s a much bigger art world and a much bigger museum world. We only had a very limited LA County Museum and no MoCA.

Fabrik: In the contemporary art world it seems like where an artist is based is loaded with meaning. Was there any cache in being an LA artist in the 60s and 70s?

Ruscha: It seemed like your area code was all important. 212 was it and 213 was Australia! While Willem de Kooning and Jasper Johns were artists, I was an LA Artist. It’s much broader now, but back then there was a little tag that was tied to your toe when you worked out here. You were a regionalist.

Fabrik: Are there any current LA artists or art venues that you find compelling?

Ruscha: There are so many art galleries that come and go. The Museum of Jurassic Technology is a great place. And the Center For Land Use Interpretation, right next door. I think those two places are some of the diamonds in the rough as far as LA. But things pop up all the time that I don’t even know about, but I’ve got my ear to the ground.

© Edward Ruscha. The Mighty Ones. 1993. Acrylic on Lunette-Shaped Canvas. 66 x 137 inches. Edward Ruscha Studio.

© Ed Ruscha. Annie, Poured from Maple Syrup. 1966. Oil on Canvas. 55 x 59 inches. Gagosian Gallery.

© Ed Ruscha. Sin - Without. 1991. Acrylic and Oil on Canvas. 70 x 138 inches. Edward Ruscha Studio.

Fabrik: The art critic Peter Plagens once said that while other Los Angeles based artists had the LA look, you “look at LA.” What is it about LA that you find so compelling to look at?

Ruscha: I tend to borrow things from LA. Some of these ugly buildings I see in LA are really food for thought. Some of the simplest things in the world help me view and understand LA. When the sun is shining here there is this remote tie in with glamour that other cities don’t have. This place doesn’t seem to have anywhere to look up to. It’s totally open ended… But I think it goes back to simple things like orange trees, the sun shining, freeways, and Chicano car stylings. Chicano car styling is one of the most treasured cultural icons of Los Angeles. You can’t transpose that anywhere else.

Fabrik: Do you feel like your work is influenced by LA’s cultural fabric? Is any particular field a conscious inspiration for your work?

Ruscha: It’s a back door influence. It’s not something visible where one could say “Ah ha! These lines that he makes refer to early 20th Century Craftsman housing!” It doesn’t happen that way with me. I’m more influenced by dreamy things. In a lot of ways I am disconnected from LA, but in many ways I’ve got my basic thoughts and desires about where I am living and they are still solid.

© Edward Ruscha. Norm’s - La Cienega, On Fire. 1964. Oil on Canvas. 64 1/4 x 124 1/2 inches. Edward Ruscha Studio.

© Edward Ruscha. Blue Collar Tool & Die. 1992. Acrylic on Canvas. 52 x 116 inches. Gagosian Gallery.

© Ed Ruscha. Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights. 1962. Oil on Canvas. 66 3/4 x 133 1/4 inches. Edward Ruscha Studio.

Fabrik: It’s interesting that you mention dreams. Your work has an intimate relationship with film, an evocative quality that is equally nostalgic and playful.

Ruscha: When I first went to New York at about age 20 I felt like I was in a familiar land. Movies laid out the carpet that I would walk down to see the city. It was kind of like going to Oz. The same thing happened with LA. It seemed like movies initiated me to new lands. I can’t be exactly specific, but I’m inspired by the clichéd activities in films. For example, in movies from the 40s there was always a train that was depicted as a little spot in the lower right hand corner of the screen and it would always emerge with all of its whistles and steam in the upper left hand side of the frame. It was a bridge between plot action when people were moving from one place to another. It had a powerful, cinematic suggestion to me that directly came into my work as an artist. I still dig the diagonal (laughs).

Fabrik: You’ve said in the past that you make work unburdened by art history. Is this still the case?

Ruscha: I might have been a little aggressive saying something like that. There is nothing that I’ve looked at before that hasn’t somehow had an influence on me. Even the junk I hate has a molding effect. I’m incredibly burdened in some ways, but I also have a way of tossing that off when I am working and making things fluid. I don’t work with a feeling of anguish.

Fabrik: At one point you said that your work was tied to the decadence and frustration of city life. I was wondering if you could elaborate on that a little bit and tell me if that is still the case.

Ruscha: It probably is. I look at the unfortunate things: misfortunes, underbellies, sadness. The things that go on not just in a city, but everywhere. The weight of history and all these things can be looked at negatively, but they also can be looked at positively. I see a lot when I drive here. Sometimes I’ll just be driving along and I’ll see a building that just assaults me and insults my intelligence. And the entire thing is so nasty its like having someone spit lemon juice in your face, but there is some effect there that makes me roll on and continue and make something of it. These negative things do work in my favor. They influence me to take motion on things. And that’s where I think my art comes from.

© Ed Ruscha. They Called Her Styrene. 1977. Pastel on Paper. 22 5/8 x 28 5/8 inches. Edward Ruscha Studio.

© Ed Ruscha. Talk Radio. 1987. Acrylic on Canvas. 58 x 58 inches. Gagosian Gallery.

© Edward Ruscha. The End #27. 2003. Acrylic & Ink on Paper. 24 x 30 inches. Gagosian Gallery.

Story Links:
Ed Ruscha: http://www.edruscha.com
Museum of Jurassic Technology: http://www.mjt.org
Center For Land Use Interpretation: http://www.clui.org