Ed Moses (1926 – 2018).
The “Cool School” of Los Angeles artists who exhibited at the Ferus Gallery in the 1950s and ’60s—Ed Ruscha, Robert Irwin, Larry Bell, Edward Kienholz, John Altoon, Ken Price, Billy Al Bengston—lost a member this week with the death of Ed Moses.
Above: The Ferus Gang—John Altoon, Craig Kauffman, Allen Lynch, Ed Kienholz, Ed Moses, Robert Irwin, and Billy Al Bengston—in 1962.
Below: Artwork by Ed Moses.
The unofficial mascot for the fifth decennial Skulptur Projekte Münster—through October 1, 2017—is a cartoon of a man holding a drink and a cigarette exclaiming, “This shit rocks!” In the year of the previous exhibition, the Henry Moore Institute and its curator Penelope Curtis initiated and published the MODERN SCULPTURE READER (2007)—which quickly sold out and fell out of print.
Five years later, the J. Paul Getty Museum sponsored a second edition of this essential volume on twentieth-century sculpture, which includes:
Essays by Eva Hesse (“Contingency”), Apollinaire (“Duchamp–Villon”), Vito Acconci (“Notes on Vienna”), and Benjamin H. D. Buchloh (“Michael Asher and the Conclusion of Modern Sculpture”). Interviews with Louise Bourgeois, Robert Smithson, Rachel Whiteread, Bruce Nauman, and Richard Serra. Excerpts from longer pieces—Robert Irwin’s “Notes Toward Conditional Art,” Rilke on Rodin, Wilhelm Worringer on abstraction, Carl Einstein on African sculpture, and Allan Kaprow on assemblages and happenings.
The 70 texts—artists’ statements, newspaper and magazine articles, poems, transcribed lectures and interviews—are arranged chronologically, and edited by Jon Wood, David Hulks, and Alex Potts.
MODERN SCULPTURE READER (Leeds: Henry Moore Institute/Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2007 and 2012).
Claes Oldenburg, Giant Pool Balls—which was made for the first Skulptur Projekte Münster in 1977—covered with graffiti. Image credit: Rudolf Wakonigg/LWL, 1977/©1987 Skulptur Projekte Münster.
“Joe the Lion”—David Bowie’s song about Chris Burden—is a tribute to the seminal performance artist’s early days, when his body was a laboratory and canvas for bullets, nails, starvation, and potential electrocution. As a student at UC Irvine, Burden didn’t wait around for the bullies; he stuffed himself into a locker. Hitting his heyday during the rise of video art, his pieces have been well-documented, and today his Urban Light sculpture is the number one selfie spot in Los Angeles.
Join Richard Dewey and Timothy Marrinan at the LACMA screening of their 2016 documentary BURDEN, followed by a conversation with the directors.
BURDEN features interviews with Marina Abramovic, Ed Moses, Alexis Smith, Larry Bell, Billy Al Benston, Robert Irwin, Barbara Smith, Peter Schjeldahl, Jonathan Gold, Ed Ruscha, Paul Schimmel, Frank Gehry, Christopher Knight, and the late Vito Acconci.
BURDEN, Thursday, May 4, at 7:30 pm.
BING THEATER, LACMA, 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles.
eventbrite.com/e/free-screening-burden-tickets-33719463824
Chris Burden, post-performance
Image credit: Lewright