Ed Ruscha: On the Road
This exhibition brings together two great visionaries of art and language—painter Ed Ruscha and author Jack Kerouac. In 1951, Kerouac wrote On the Road on his typewriter as a continuous 120- foot-long scroll, recording his experiences during road trips in the United States and Mexico in the late 1940s. With its publication in 1957, Kerouac was acknowledged as the leading voice of the Beat Generation. Over the last few years, Ruscha has continued to explore his own fascination with the shifting emblems of American life by turning his keen aesthetic sensibility to Kerouac’s classic novel. Having created a limited edition artist book version of On The Road in 2009, Ruscha has created a new body of paintings and drawings inspired by passages in Kerouac’s novel. Ed Ruscha: On the Road will be on view through April 22, 2012. IMAGE: Ed Ruscha, Mañana, 2009. Acrylic on canvas. Private collection. Image courtesy of the artist and Gagosian Gallery. © Ed Ruscha. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery.
