Ed Ruscha
REAL DEAL, 2014
etching in blue, on wove paper,
39 x 34 x 1 1/2 in
99.1 x 86.4 x 3.8 cm
Edition of 40
Available at VFA
I’m dead serious about being nonsensical. - Ed Ruscha
Ed Ruscha (b.1937) created his first Chocolate Room for the Venice Biennial in 1970. It was a large room, lined with sheets of paper that were screen printed with chocolate. It eventually melted in the summer heat and was closed after being swarmed by a large number of ants.
Still, it has been exhibited more than eight times, and was purchased in 2003 by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles for an estimated US$1.5 million and recreated at MoMA in 2023.
This year, Ruscha has collaborated with the Los Angeles-based boutique chocolate company andSons and has created a limited edition of 300 chocolate bars. A reproduction of Ruscha’s Made in California is printed on the box. The chocolate itself is shaped like the mountainous terrain of the West Coast. Each box lists for $295... and have already sold out.
During his career, Ruscha has experimented with a vast array of materials , techniques and even created his own typeface, Boy Scout Utility Modern, to use in his paintings, often combining text with landscapes.
Ruscha’s works are part of the permanent collection of the Whitney, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Hirshhorn, the Art Institute of Chicago, Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art in Montsoreau, France and many other major art institutions.
Ed Ruscha lives and works in Los Angeles, where he is still inspired by the city and surrounding landscapes.
Alejandro Cartagena (b. 1977) is having his first major retrospective. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is exhibiting work that Cartagena has done over the last twenty years.
Born in the Dominican Republic and raised in Monterery, Mexico, Cartagena says that he is interested in the concepts of urban sprawl, home ownership and ‘place and personhood’. “I’m trying to figure out where I belong in those stories,” he said in an interview with SFMoMA. “As an outsider, there’s a low-grade permanent anxiety present — you’re never from here, yet you’re here. It’s also an opportunity to comment on cultural norms, things that mean one thing in one culture, but something else in another. I will never completely be of this place, yet I can try to understand it from my perspective, and that manifests in my photography.”
His Carpoolers series, available at VFA, was published in The Guardian in 2012 and struck a chord with readers around the world. “I went to the same place at the same time for a year and the same trucks reappeared on different days, weeks, and months,” he said. “Inadvertently, the project’s theme expanded from workers going to work to the routine of the city and how these micro actions must happen over and over again for the city to function.”
Alejandro Cartagena: Ground Rules is currently of view at SFMoMa and will run through April 19, 2026
Please contact us if you would like more information about the works of Ed Ruscha and Alejandro Cartagena available at VFA.
References:
Leigh Anne Miller. Pop Artist Ed Ruscha Collaborating with andSons on $295 Holiday Chocolate Bar. Artnews. November 10, 2025.
Hannah Silver. Ed Ruscha’s foray into chocolate is sweet, smart and very American. Wallpaper. November 10, 2025.
