Beschreibung:

Ed Ruscha Sex at Noon Taxes 2002 Acrylic on canvas. 64 x 76 in. (162.6 x 193 cm). Signed and dated “Ed Ruscha 2002” on the reverse.
Provenance Gagosian Gallery, New York (2002) Exhibited New York, Gagosian Gallery, Ed Ruscha Paintings, May 10 - June 15, 2002; Aspen, Aspen Art Museum, Ed Ruscha Mountain Paintings, 13 February - 11 April, 2004; Le Havre, Musée Malraux, Continuum, June 1 - September 4, 2006 Literature R. Smith “Art Review; A Painter who Reads, A Reader who Paints,” The New York Times, May 24, 2002; M. Schwendener, “Ed Ruscha – Reviews: New York,” ArtForum, November, 2002; A. Gopnik, “Bones in the Ice Cream,” Ed Ruscha Paintings, Toronto, 2002, p. 7 (illustrated) Catalogue Essay Sex at Noon T axes (After a painting of the same title by Ed Ruscha From the ghost town’s fencepost, my lariat ropes your palindromic peak and hauls it to our bedroom, where the timbers arch to hold off the mountain’s hooves – no avalanche turns snowfall into uncorraled horseshoes. The steeds bear us upslope. We reach the muddy cleft between Maroon Bells and Crested Butte, gnawing on caribou and warmed liver of once noble elk. – Sally Van Doren (S. Van Doren, Sex at Noon Taxes, Louisiana, 2008, p. 3) Sex At Noon Taxes is ultimate Ruscha: a palindrome, a visual pun, a mountainous landscape. From his earliest pieces on, Ed Ruscha has always been interested in words so it is of no surprise that he would choose to experiment with the ultimate play on words: the palindrome. The palindromes he chooses are suggestive and thought-provoking. Along with Sex at Noon Taxes we have Lion in Oil, Solo Gigolos and Tulsa Slut. In referring to this series, Ruscha said: “They’re sort of auto-suggestions, right there, in the paintings. If you look long enough you’ll start seeing Tulsa sluts in there. I’m kind of prudish, in terms of outright sexual imagery – though I think it’s the basis of damn near everything we do” (A. Gopnik, “Bones in the Ice Cream,” Ed Ruscha Paintings, Toronto, 2002, p. 7). And indeed there is an unquestionable sexual element to these kaleidoscopic mountains. They are Rorschach blots open to interpretation. Ruscha has also always been interested in mountain imagery; however, he uses it more as an investigative backdrop for his words rather than a specific geographical reference. Emerging from this concept of landscape painting rather than the accuracy of painting landscapes, his mountains are amalgams of peaks, both real and fake, the world over. According to Ruscha “the mountains emerged from my connection to landscape, and experiencing it, and especially from driving across country. In the western half of the United States mountains just erupt from this flat landscape. They’re based on specific mountains and alterations and photographs, but they’re not really mountains in the sense that a naturalist would paint a picture of a mountain. They’re ideas of mountains, picturing some sort of unobtainable bliss or glory—rock and ways to fall, dangerous and beautiful” (A. Gopnik, “Bones in the Ice Cream,” Ed Ruscha Paintings, Toronto, 2002, p. 7). Emerging into a blue lightly clouded sky is a pristine snow-capped mountain peak. Superimposed along the bottom of the work in the same crystal snow white are the words Sex At Noon Taxes, meticulously written in neutral Sans Serif. They invade the natural beauty of the landscape, creating an oddly jarring yet infinitely intriguing juxtaposition. His words are beautifully distilled human footprints on the natural world. This overlaid text creates both tension and strength when imposed atop these icy mountain scenes. Ruscha said, “Paintings of words can be clearer to see when there is an anonymous backdrop. I’ve always believed in anonymity as far as a backdrop goes—that’s what I consider the ground or the landscape or whatever it is that’s in a painting. I do have paintings of backgrounds with foregrounds that seem to be the words or the images. That’s why I have this kind of lofty idea of a landscape that’s a background, but I don’t see it. It’s almost not there. It’s just something to put the words on” (F. Fehlau, “Ed Rusch