- Museum number
- 2016,7004.1
- Title
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Object: Cash for Tools 2
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Series: Rusty Signs
- Description
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Print resembling a rusty metal sign that reads 'CASH FOR TOOLS' with the lettering in relief, with 'fixing' holes at the top two corners and a 'bullet' hole next to the 'R'. 2014
Mixografía print on handmade paper
- Production date
- 2014
- Dimensions
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Height: 610 millimetres
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Width: 608 millimetres (irreg.)
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Produced using the patented Mixografia technique for printing high-relief works first developed in the 1970s by Luis and Lea Remba. The relief effect was obtained by placing wet handmade paper on inked printing plates that were passed through a press under great pressure. The letters and bullet holes were drawn by Ruscha and superimposed onto weathered metal plates before the printing plates were made. The holes were cut out after the printing. Ruscha has worked with Mixografia for over 20 years. In his 'Rusty Signs' series he explores the neglected and forgotten signs that can be found across the American landscape. Along with their state of disrepair, the words on the signs appear to reflect a society undergoing economic hardship. Published in an edition of 50 by Mixografia, Los Angeles.
Text from Coppel, Daunt and Tallman, 'The American Dream: pop to the present', London: Thames and Hudson in association with the British Museum, 2017, cat. no. 193 (with cat. no. 192, 'Dead End 2'):
‘Neglected and forgotten signs from neglected and forgotten landscapes’ of America is how Ruscha described these three-dimensional prints made at the Mixografía Workshop in Los Angeles in 2014. (Cited by Sarah Kirk Hanley in 'Art in Print', 4:6 (March–April 2015), p. 25.) The proprietary process by which they were made takes its name from the workshop where it was developed. Ruscha drew the letters of each sign as well as the bullet holes and various piercings and then superimposed them on weathered and corroded metal plates before the printing plates were made. The relief effect was obtained by placing the wet handmade paper on the inked printing plate and passing it through the press under great pressure. By this process the specially made paper became strong and dense and the shape of the plate and every detail on its surface was picked up. (Email from Shaye Remba, Director of Mixografía Workshop, to Stephen Coppel, 10 August 2016, describes the process of making these prints upon which this account is based.) Each sign was inked in a slightly different way to suggest weathering at different rates and under different conditions. The bullet holes, clipped corners, dents and the holes of old fastenings were faithfully reproduced life size. The squared-off letter form is one that Ruscha often favours. ‘A kind of typography that I call Boy Scout Utility Modern’, he once named it, ‘…the kind of thing a carpenter might apply to making a letter form…I like them to look homemade.’ (Ruscha, quoted in Suzanne Muchnic, ‘Getting a Read on Ed Ruscha’, 'Los Angeles Times', 9 December 1990, Calendar, p. 3; in Ed Ruscha, 'Leave Any Information at the Signal: Writings, Interviews, Bits, Pages', ed. Alexandra Schwartz, Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press, 2002, p. 311.) 'Rusty Signs', a suite of six works, two of which are shown here, expresses Ruscha’s deepening preoccupation with the decay of the American Dream, first addressed at the 2005 Venice Biennale with his 'Course of Empire' paintings.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
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2017 9 Mar-18 Jun, London, BM, G30, The American Dream: pop to the present, cat. no. 193
2018 2 Jun-2 Sept, Paris, Fondation Custodia, The American Dream: pop to the present
2020-21 8 Oct-31 Jan, Madrid, La Caixa Forum, The American Dream: pop to the present, cat. no. 150
2021 2 Mar-13 Jun, Barcelona, La Caixa Forum, The American Dream: pop to the present, cat. no. 150
2021 13 Jul-14 Nov, Zaragoza, La Caixa Forum, The American Dream: pop to the present cat. no. 150
2023-2024, 19 Sept-28 Jan, BM, Gallery 90a, 'Ed Ruscha: roads and insects'
- Acquisition date
- 2016
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 2016,7004.1