©1985, Leland Rice
Currently not on view
a. Left: Ost, West Zu Hause Best b. Right: Mauer im KZ-B ,
1985–86
Leland Rice, American, born 1940
2002-233 a-b
In the early 1970s, Rice began to train his camera on walls, frequently the walls of his studio, which served both as backdrops to arrangements and as subjects in and of themselves. Rice mined these walls for their native beauty as well as for their abstract qualities. In 1983, he started to document the soon-to-be demolished Berlin Wall, a project that culminated in his 1991 book Up Against It. The Berlin Wall, a physical and political barrier of enormous consequence, became a monumental canvas onto which thousands of people recorded their anger and discontent in pen and paint. As Rice once said of this body of work, "I wanted to get closer to something that would deal with human life—something that would be more engaging and penetrate what’s on our minds. Without disengaging myself from my formal background, I wanted something deeper."
Information
Title
a. Left: Ost, West Zu Hause Best
b. Right: Mauer im KZ-B
Dates
1985–86
Maker
Medium
Cibachrome prints
Dimensions
image: 38.1 x 47.4 cm (15 x 18 11/16 in.)
sheet: 40.6 x 50.8 cm (16 x 20 in.)
Credit Line
The Peter C. Bunnell Collection, gift of the artist
Object Number
2002-233 a-b
Place Depicted
Europe, Germany, Berlin, The Berlin Wall
Inscription
a: Inscribed and signed in ink, verso along lower edge: Ost, West Zu Hause Best 1985-86 (Left panel) Leland Rice (original print)
b: Signed and inscribed in ink, verso along lower edge: Leland Rice N.F.S. Berlin Wall Series: Mauer im KZ-B (right panel) 1986
Culture
Techniques
Subject
graffiti, walls, red, drawings, yellow, text, green (color), blue, white (color), paint, gray (color), black
