NOW THEN

Ed Ruscha consistently held up a mirror to American society by transforming some of its defining attributes—from consumer culture and popular entertainment to the ever-changing urban landscape—into the very subject of his art. In 1956, Ruscha left Oklahoma City to study commercial art in Los Angeles, where he drew inspiration from the city’s architectural landscape—parking lots, urban streets, and apartment buildings—as well as colloquial language.

As his first comprehensive, cross-media retrospective in over 20 years, ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN traced Ruscha’s methods and familiar subjects throughout his career and underscored the many remarkable contributions he made well beyond the boundaries of the art world. The exhibition included his early works produced while traveling through Europe, his installations—such as the Chocolate Room and The Course of Empire, presented at the Venice Biennale in 1970 and 2005, respectively—and his ceaseless photographic documentation of the streets of Los Angeles, which began in 1965.