Ed Ruscha’s large-scale collage “Pay Nothing Until April” inaugurates Munich’s new public art format on Lenbachplatz. The five by five metre billboard is part of the “A Space Called Public / Hoffentlich öffentlich” festival curated by Elmgreen & Dragset in Munich in 2013. Formally modelled on the oversized billboards often found in cities, the billboard has become an increasingly important address for temporary large-scale works since 2013.
The large-format billboard displays an impressive mountain-collage by Ed Ruscha: On the visually expressive panorama of a snow-covered mountain range, we read the inscription: “Pay Nothing Until April”. Presented in public space, the work with its combination of text and image is reminiscent of advertising posters in the city. By taking the stance of the neutral observer, Ed Ruscha is fond of using his lettered images to reflect the banality of metropolitan reality and the mass media. The motif for Munich is derived from an extensive series of paintings with which the artist does not wish to define any semantic fields or convey any logical messages. Instead, he provides space for inexplicable association and reflection in order to lend a poetic note to Munich – as well as some confusion.
Ed Ruscha, born in Omaha in 1937, lives and works in Los Angeles.
