Since the death of the Los Angeles artist Jason Rhoades in 2006 from an accidental drug overdose and heart disease at 41, his exuberant life has always threatened to overshadow his short career. But Rhoades, a canny student of pop culture, seemed to have anticipated that idea almost from the beginning.
His sculpture and writing were as obsessively self-referential as a celebrity’s Twitter feed. In “Volume A,” a 1998 book, he arranged information about his art and life into a cross-referenced encyclopedia that includes entries on sheep (he raised them as a youth in rural California); the movie “Car Wash” (he was crazy about it but not quite sure why); cocaine; Brancusi; and Bert, his father’s dog, born with an anatomical defect that caused its anus to be almost on its back.
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