Scene of the crime

by Ralph Rugoff

Scene of the Crime surveys thirty-five years of West Coast art, investigating aesthetic practices that address the art object as a kind of evidence, a clue to absent meanings and prior actions. From seminal works by Ed Ruscha, Bruce Nauman, Barry Le Va, and Vija Celmins to recent works by artists such as Paul McCarthy, James Luna, Anthony Hernandez, and Sharon Lockhart, this art declares that it is about more than meets the eye and raises the suspicion that a significant segment of contemporary art demands a forensic reading.