Ed Ruscha / Now Then : A Retrospective

Exhibition at the MoMA, New York, 10 September 2023 - 13 January 2024

"I don't have any Seine River like Monet," Ed Ruscha once said. "I've just got US 66 between Oklahoma and Los Angeles."

In 1956, Ed Ruscha (1937-) left his hometown of Oklahoma City and took Route 66 to study commercial art in Los Angeles, where he was inspired by the city's architecture, colloquial language and popular culture. Ruscha recorded and transformed familiar subjects such as roadside petrol stations and the 20th Century Fox logo, often revisiting motifs, sites and words years later.

This exhibition catalogue, which covers 65 years of Ed Ruscha's career, presents over 250 works created between 1958 and the present day: paintings, drawings, prints, films, photographs, artist's books and installations. Published to accompany the most comprehensive presentation of the artist's work to date and his first solo exhibition at MoMA in New York, this richly illustrated book highlights Ruscha's most celebrated works as well as lesser-known aspects of his practice.

Essays analyse Ruscha's work from a fresh perspective, offering new insights into one of the most influential figures in post-war American art. The book highlights Ruscha's singular contributions, including his material exploration of language, his experiments with unconventional mediums - such as gunpowder, chocolate or chewing tobacco - and his groundbreaking self-published books.