GAL CHEWS GUM 2019 - 2021
$95,000
Cast bronze with hand applied patina
Description
Ed Ruscha (American, b. 1937).
Three-dimensional sculpture.
"I'm interested in glorifying something that we in the world would say doesn't deserve being glorified. Something that's forgotten, focused on as though it were some sort of sacred object."
— Ed Ruscha
GAL CHEWS GUM is a new bronze edition that synthesizes multiple aspects of Ruscha’s iconic vision into a single form: text, signage, and shadows. The sculpture is fabricated through innovation of the lost wax method of bronze casting that dates back to the 3rd millennium BC. The bronze conjures a weathered road sign or billboard flashing the words ‘GAL CHEWS SAME PIECE OF GUM SINCE 1970.’ However, rather than conveying its message with eye-catching, brash graphics, the sign text is written in negative space with the letters cut out from the face of the sign in a stretched, horizontal font.
Variations of this text have appeared twice previously in Ruscha’s paintings (2008 and 2014), though with different backgrounds and compositions. Further, two works on paper (2016 and 2017) as well as a gravure print with aquatint (2019) also feature variants of the text, indicating the artist’s ongoing fascination with the phrase. In this new edition, the viewer’s three-dimensional experience with the text varies depending on placement of the sculpture, light sources and the space it inhabits. As the light source or vantage point changes, the phrase is boldly legible or slyly obscured as the blankness of the cut-out words are filled and activated by whatever exists behind them. Calling to mind the painted trompe l’oeil shadows of Ruscha’s early “Ribbon Word” drawings, the sculpture casts a shadow with the block letters duplicated and hovering incandescent within the sign’s silhouette.
Since the 1960s, Ruscha has incorporated text into his practice, often finding inspiration in overheard phrases or advertising. His background as a commercial artist and sign painter is evident in his longtime exploration of the sign motif, which has been in his oeuvre for nearly six decades...
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Dimensions
Height: 14.25 inches / 36.2 cm
Width: 20 inches / 50.8 cm
Depth: 4.25 inches / 10.79 cm
Signature
Signature, year and edition number etched on underside of base
Provenance
Acquired directly from the publisher
Condition Report
The work is in excellent condition, direct from the publisher.
Art Period
Contemporary
Movement/Style
Conceptual
Purchase: Ed Ruscha — $95,000
