Beginning Saturday, June 11, Peder Lund is delighted to present the film L.A. Restaurants (2019) by the American artist Ed Ruscha (1937- ). A contemporary master and one of the most recognized and influential artists working today, Ruscha is widely celebrated for his pioneering use of myriad media, including conceptually driven artist’s books, drawing, printmaking, photography, painting, and film. He has redefined our vision of American scenery through his landscapes and text-based works that explore the formal elements of printed text and its fluid relationship to the visual image. L.A. Restaurants, shown for the first time in Europe, continues Ruscha's interest in creating a kind of typological catalogue of the sites of Los Angeles, the city where the artist has lived since he was a young man. Ruscha's approach to documenting the gas stations and buildings on the Sunset Strip, first explored in his seminal artist’s books of the 1960s, comes full circle - sixty-four restaurants emblematic of “Old Hollywood” across the LA region are lovingly immortalized on film. In honor of this summer exhibition, the gallery will hold extended hours each Thursday evening to maximize the film's cinematic and transportive effect.

Ed Ruscha has had major exhibitions across the world, most recently at the Oklahoma Contemporary, Oklahoma City (2021); Blanton Museum of Art, Austin (2020); KODE Art Museums and Composer Homes, Bergen (2018); de Young Museum, San Francisco, organized by the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco (2016); The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (2013); Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland (2013); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2012); and Tate Modern, London (2009), to mention only a few. His work is included in the world’s most prestigious institutional collections, including Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Ruscha represented the United States in the 51st Biennale di Venezia in 2005, and was featured in the 2015 Biennale de Lyon’s exhibition, “La Vie Moderne.” A publication dedicated to the artist's work in film is forthcoming. Ruscha lives and works in Los Angeles.