ruscha – FTN-blog

It was a few days ago that David B. published on Facebook some photographs he had taken. Without knowing where these were taken I immediately ralized that these could have been made some 50 even 120 years ago.

I refer to the Hollywood sign paintings by Ed Ruscha and the landscapes around Arles by Vincent van Gogh.

Without knowing, we have learned to look at objects, landscapes and forms like we are our own artists and these observations must have influenced us in the way we look at the world around us and take and create our own art with the many pictures we nowadays can take with camera’s and phones. It even proves that art is important for those who have an open mind towards it. Learning from the art and artists they have encountered in museums and galeries, to create their own interprations of the world around them.

www.ftn-books.com has some very nice Ruscha and van Gogh titles available.

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Influenced by Marcel Duchamp, Jasper Johns and H.C. Westermann, Ruscha developed an art form for himself. Ruscha achieved recognition for paintings incorporating words and phrases and for his many photographic books, all influenced by the deadpan irreverence of the Pop Art movement. His textual, flat paintings have been linked with both the Pop Art movement and the beat generation, but for me Edward Ruscha is foremost a Pop Art artist. Possibly this is because one of my favorite Stedelijk Museum catalogues from the Seventies is this 1976 Ruscha catalogue which was designed by Wim Crouwel and filled with typical Pop Art related Ruscha paintings.

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Text and image blend into each other , catching your attention with a word or a phrase. Ruscha stayed true to this kind of painting and has since become one of the great names in the world of art. Checking my inventory i found that i have many interesting publications available at www.ftn-books.com. An excellent opportunity to find out why Ruscha is important in the world of contemporary art.