HOLLYWOOD DREAM BUBBLE:
Ed Ruscha’s Influence in Los Angeles and Beyond at The Hole

Ellen Jong, Schmear (2021). Protein resin, lamp black, powder pigments, and archival inkjet print on lycra, 37 x 51 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and The Hole, Los Angeles. Photo: Chris Young.

Curated by Dani Tull and Jessica Gallucci, HOLLYWOOD DREAM BUBBLE: Ed Ruscha’s Influence in Los Angeles and Beyond is an expansive exhibition that maps Ruscha’s impact on contemporary artists in the city. Ruscha, famous for wry and winsome paintings, drawings, photographs, and books, often draws power from what he omits: the negative space enveloping a solitary word, big skies framing gasoline stations in postindustrial zones, the emotional vacancy of leisurely poolside scenes. While his peers and successors explore themes Ruscha pioneered—a distinctively American nexus of landscape, language, and mood—their response to his influence is anything but sparse. Featuring seventy-eight artists, the maximalist exhibition showcases the enduring impact of Ruscha’s legacy while highlighting contemporary explorations of atmosphere and affect that continue to expand upon his vision.

Some of Ruscha’s most iconic works feature a word floating indefinitely in space, a motif that recurs throughout the exhibition. Some are lightheartedly confrontational, like Deborah Kass’ OY/YO (2016), a six-foot-wide aluminum sculpture of the interjection/greeting that stands in the center of the space with humorous, nagging persistence. Others tip into self-serious preciousness, like Sam Durant’s mawkish Open Your Eyes (2017), an electric sign with the phrase scrawled in black against a blue backdrop, or Ricci Albenda’s smugly cutesy painting chrysanthemum in f (#2) (2018), where each serif letter is delicately colored in an almost sentimental way. These works find welcome counterparts in Ellen Jong’s Schmear (2021), which experiments with smudging traditional Chinese calligraphy ink, and Alfred Steiner’s watercolor Jizz (2021), a depiction of the word on a cropped torso that is somehow both elegant and lewd.

Ruscha’s brilliance lies partially in his ability to demystify images and ideas that might otherwise be imbued with false grandeur or sublimity. Instead, he finds humor and intrigue in the banal—a sense of absurdity and mystery similarly embraced by many of the artists in this show. In OOPS (That Prince Song) (2024), Jeremy Shockley paints the phrase “OOPS OUT OF TIME” in wispy gray amidst a Turneresque cloudscape as though immortalizing a profound message of transience with a shrugging casualness. Similarly, Michael Ho’s acrylic, enamel, and charcoal wall relief juxtaposes an idyllic landscape with ironic text, reading “BUT YOU’RE STILL COMING INTO WORK RIGHT?” against a picturesque view of palm trees, a shaded path, and blue skies beyond: Cue the deflating balloon sound.

Commercial affluence, vistas of nature untainted by human touch, and the gestural painted canvas were not all that compelling to Ruscha, nor are they to the artists working in his wake. Instead, these artists are keyed into how smaller, more illogical images, insights, and words accumulate to great effect. Tull and Gallucci tap into this model in their energizing and sprawling exhibition, presenting a version of Hollywood that includes, but moves beyond, the Tinseltown connotations referenced by Ruscha in works like Another Hollywood Dream Bubble Has Popped (1976), in which the titular phrase appears in white against a bubblegum pink backdrop, and after which the exhibition is named. Shaped in Ruscha’s image, this HOLLYWOOD DREAM BUBBLE—one that is impersonal and provisional, insightful yet understated—has not yet popped. I think it will endure for a while longer.

HOLLYWOOD DREAM BUBBLE: Ed Ruscha’s Influence in Los Angeles and Beyond runs from April 27–June 15, 2024 at The Hole (844 N. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90038). 

HOLLYWOOD DREAM BUBBLE: Ed Ruscha’s Influence in Los Angeles and Beyond (installation view) (2024). Image courtesy of the artists and The Hole, Los Angeles. Photo: Chris Young.

HOLLYWOOD DREAM BUBBLE: Ed Ruscha’s Influence in Los Angeles and Beyond (installation view) (2024). Image courtesy of the artists and The Hole, Los Angeles. Photo: Chris Young.

HOLLYWOOD DREAM BUBBLE: Ed Ruscha’s Influence in Los Angeles and Beyond (installation view) (2024). Image courtesy of the artists and The Hole, Los Angeles. Photo: Chris Young.

Deborah Kass, OY-YO (2016). Acrylic polyurethane on aluminum stainless steel base, 37 x 73 x 19.5 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and The Hole, Los Angeles. Photo: Chris Young.

Jeremy Shockley, OOPS (That Prince Song) (2024). Oil on canvas, 48 x 40 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and The Hole, Los Angeles. Photo: Chris Young.

HOLLYWOOD DREAM BUBBLE: Ed Ruscha’s Influence in Los Angeles and Beyond (installation view) (2024). Image courtesy of the artists and The Hole, Los Angeles. Photo: Chris Young.

HOLLYWOOD DREAM BUBBLE: Ed Ruscha’s Influence in Los Angeles and Beyond (installation view) (2024). Image courtesy of the artists and The Hole, Los Angeles. Photo: Chris Young.

Alfred Steiner, Jizz (2021). Framed watercolor on Fabriano 300 lb. hot press paper, 12 x 12 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and The Hole, Los Angeles. Photo: Chris Young.

Michael Ho, But You’re Still Coming Into Work Right? (2024). Acrylic, enamel, and charcoal on cotton canvas, 26 x 21 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and The Hole, Los Angeles. Photo: Chris Young.

Brice Bischoff, Untitled, Halo Snuffers, #6 (2017). Archival pigment print, 35 x 52 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and The Hole, Los Angeles. Photo: Chris Young.

Isabella Miller lives and works in Los Angeles.

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