For Jason Rhoades, the car was a vehicle of artistic pursuit, both readymade sculpture and American idol. Starting 27 February, Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles will dedicate an entire gallery at its Downtown Arts District location to a yearlong exploration of Rhoades’ art via the subject of cars and car culture. Known for the driving imagination and ambition of his work, as well, at times, its reckless provocation and overwhelming materiality, Rhoades (1965–2006) was a world builder for whom the making of sculptures and the creation of narratives were intertwined. His epic-scaled installations made him a force of the international art world in the 1990s while he was based in Los Angeles. ‘DRIVE,’ will unfold over a series of thematic iterations, an ever-changing exhibition of Rhoades’ sculptures, drawings, videos and multiples—enriched by archival materials, public programs and contemporary perspectives.
Jason Rhoades (1965 – 2006) is known for monumental, room-filling installations. These idiosyncratic sculptures incorporate a wide range of objects including products of mass culture combined with hand-made items and biographical references. Drawing on the history of assemblage, Rhoades imbues his materials with powerful formal, narrative and allegorical links, encouraging viewers to connect and interpret the associative chains. Rhoades often drew inspiration from the city of Los Angeles where he lived and worked as well as The Great American West, informed by his rural upbringing in Northern California. His work has been exhibited internationally since the early 1990s.
Engaged with concepts such as labor, capital, materiality, modernism, performance and process, Rhoades’ work often derives from the specific conditions in which the work is created and explores structures that are not readily visible or apparent. His practice, emblazoned by the artist's bold sense of freedom, wryly subverts the expectation of artists and artworks by breaking with aesthetic conventions and pushing against the boundaries of the art world. Rhoades fundamentally understood art to be ‘a pursuit of something’ and notably viewed his body of work as one piece, a singular ongoing project.