The Art Gallery of NSW this morning announced the acquisition of Ed Ruscha’s ‘Gospel’, 1972, to celebrate the appointment of director Michael Brand.
Until now, the painting has remained in the internationally acclaimed American artist’s personal collection.
Made possible by the Art Gallery Society of NSW through its Collection Circle acquisition program, this major addition to the collection was selected by Michael Brand, who was invited to choose a work to celebrate his appointment as director of the Gallery.
President of the Art Gallery Society, John Masters, says “The Society was thrilled to be able to acquire the work by a major exponent of American Pop art for the Gallery’s collection. This work will now be part of the Gallery’s Pop to Popism blockbuster next year. It’s a wonderful work to also acknowledge Michael Brand’s appointment as our director.”
“I was highly honoured that the Art Gallery Society made this very generous gesture and when asked to choose a work, I immediately started thinking of Ed Ruscha. I have always been drawn to his crisp early Pop paintings and I was also keen to find a work that would support my goal of building stronger ties to art practice in California. I was fortunate to get to know Ed when I worked in Los Angeles and consider him an artist with great public spirit as well as being one of the true giants of our era”, said Michael Brand.
‘Gospel’ is the work with which Ruscha moved beyond mainstream Pop. The bold, sweeping typographic style for this culturally loaded subject is more suggestive of commercial sign-writing than holy scripture: he teases at its gravitas then, literally, pierces it, and the raw canvas on which it is painted, with metal arrows, powerfully bringing the act of martyrdom to the reading of the composition. Moving between two and three dimensions, the work holds the sublime and the banal in perfect tension, making overt reference to the divine text while evoking the everyday reality of popular devotion.
Brand says the painting will greatly enhance the Gallery’s existing collection of international contemporary art: “There is only one painting by Ruscha in Australia, from a later period. ‘Gospel’ is from the key early period and there is nothing like it in Australia.”
Image:
Ed Ruscha, Gospel, 1972, acrylic and aluminium on raw canvas, 137.2 × 152.4 cm
Courtesy the artist and AGNSW collection, gift of the Art Gallery Society of NSW with matched contribution from Ed and Danna Ruscha, supported by Gagosian Gallery
