Edward Ruscha (b. 1937)
Lot 285

Edward Ruscha (b. 1937)

Polynesian Sickness

Closed16 May 2013

Price Realised

USD 111,750

More Information

How to sell

Edward Ruscha (b. 1937)
Polynesian Sickness
signed and dated 'Ed Ruscha 1984' (lower right)
dry pigment on paper
23 x 29 in. (58.4 x 73.6 cm.)
Executed in 1984.

Kantor Gallery, Los Angeles
Acme Art, Santa Monica
Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles
Texas Gallery, Houston
Anon. sale; Sotheby's, New York, 3 May 1989, lot 242
Private collection, California

Specialist note

Executed in 1984, this work will be included in a forthcoming volume of Edward Ruscha: Catalogue Raisonné of the Works on Paper.

"A word on a page, which is also a word painted on a plane, which is also the representation of a word in a picture, becomes a sign, a symbol, and an image, on a ground which is simultaneously a page, a place, and a picture. Even if you start by looking at Edward Ruscha's first collages with their juxtaposed words and images, even if you ask yourself what the late Roland Barthes considered to be the first question, "What is happening here?"

(D. Hickey, "Available Light," The Works of Edward Ruscha, exh. cat., San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1982, p. 14.)