Ed Ruscha’s $295 USD Chocolate Bar Explores a Sweeter Side of California

Summary

• Pop art legend Ed Ruscha teams up with andSons Chocolates for a $295 USD limited-edition dark chocolate bar
• A love letter to California, the Central Valley-shaped bar comes packaged in a cloth-bound box featuring Ruscha’s “Made in California” (1971) lithograph

Ed Ruscha has partnered with Los Angeles-based chocolatier andSons on the perfect sweet treat for the art lover in your life, arriving just in time for the holidays.

Taking cues from the artist’s bold, graphic signature, the bar takes its shape after the topography of California’s Central Valley, where the Pacific Ocean kisses the Santa Lucia Mountains. Each bar comes housed in a cloth-bound box adorned with a reproduction of Ruscha’s iconic “Made in California” (1971) lithograph.

The chocolate itself fuses the tastes of Peruvian dark chocolate with sea salt sourced from Tomales Bay north of San Francisco and blood orange olive oil from a ranch in Sonoma County — a true ode to the Golden State through and through.

While at first glance, the collaboration seems like an unlikely pairing, it recalls Ruscha’s famed 1970 installation, “Chocolate Room,” which was presented at the 35th Venice Biennale. The work — revived for his MoMA and LACMA retrospectives in 2023 and 2024 — featured walls covered with sheets screenprinted in chocolate using tubes of Nestlé chocolate paste reminiscent of oil paint.

When the New York Times asked the question on everyone’s mind — “Why chocolate?” — Ruscha explained, “I was a little bit tired of making conventional pictures. And so I thought I would use unconventional materials.”

Priced at $295 USD, the Ed Ruscha x andSons edible edition will be limited to an edition and is set to launch in early December. Head to the chocolatier’s website for more details.