Reading Ed Ruscha

Reading Ed Ruscha focuses on the painter Ed Ruscha’s artistic interest in books, writing, and the act of reading as pursued by him over a period of five decades. Text and the written word appear in his works as motifs and symbols, or as actual objects in the form of books. A range of artistic means are used to explore and manipulate reading as a meaning-generative process. The essays written for this catalog book by Douglas Coupland and W. S. Di Piero approach these issues through literary and poetic forms. Beatrice von Bismarck examines the book as work, medium of publication, and exhibition format, while Yilmaz Dziewior presents an overview of Ed Ruscha’s engagement with the book as a medium and his relation to the written word. Large-format illustrations of exhibits, installation views, and an extensive appendix supplement this book.