“ED RUSCHA: OKLA” EXHIBITION AT OKLAHOMA CONTEMPORARY
“Ed Ruscha: OKLA” is the first exhibition to focus on the artist’s Oklahoma roots — his family, his upbringing, and the discovery of his calling as an artist. It is also, remarkably, his first solo museum exhibition in his home state. Ruscha lived in Oklahoma City from the ages of 5 to 18 - the formative years of both his life and his artistic sensibility. His Midwestern childhood had a profound impact on his art, which the exhibition explores through 74 works from all phases of his career, organized into interrelated, thematic sections.
Over the past six decades, Ruscha has produced a diverse and highly influential body of work encompassing paintings, drawings, prints, books, photographs, and films. The Western United States is a primary subject for his work, from his frequent evocations of the Los Angeles urban landscape to his meditations on the open road. Lore has likewise developed about his life, from his having heeded the call to “Go West, young man,” moving to California in the 1950s, to his current status as the unofficial artist laureate of Los Angeles. Yet such narratives overlook a crucial fact of Ruscha’s biography - that he went West to L.A. from someplace else, and that place was Oklahoma City, where he grew up. Ruscha’s Los Angeles is not that of a native Angeleno but of a transplant, an observer of the city who, even after all these years, retains traces of the outsider looking in. Ruscha’s Oklahoma is his place of origin.
Running through July 5th, the recently opened exhibition offers a rich and important perspective on Ed Ruscha. Tickets are free and you can book your timed visit at okcontemp.org/tickets.
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