OOF
I like thinking about concepts from different view points, like mental Cubism. Everyone interprets art differently based on their own personal experience.
I recently went to see Ed Ruscha’s “NOW THEN” exhibition and it’s a perfect example of this.
Look at this painting by Ruscha - see what thoughts come up for you.
Pay Nothing Until April, 2003, Ed Ruscha
Some may think:
Oh, my birthday is in April - how nice
Those mountains remind me of that expedition I did years ago
Ugh, don’t remind me about my taxes
I am stressed about those payments coming due
Why is the sky green?
Everyone has their own interpretation of a painting. I love that about art.
Even Ruscha has his own interpretation of his word paintings: “I like the idea of a word becoming a picture, almost leaving its body, then coming back and becoming a word again.”
How fascinating! Words, with bodies? Transforming into pictures?
Whether you were conditioned to think as critically and scientifically as a doctor, or as precisely as someone in finance - expanding the way you interpret the world through art is fascinating. Ruscha says, “Logic flies out of the window when you’re making a picture, at least it does with me. And thank God it does.”
Especially with those artists in the PopArt realm - Warhol’s soap boxes or soup cans that replaced “Art” - I love when artists assign new meaning to our familiar objects. Through Ruscha’s lens, we see his familiar imagery such as specific architectural gems (see Hollywood sign below), common motifs within consumer culture, or font-specific words elevate ordinary objects into icons.
Hollywood, 1969, Ed Ruscha
“I don’t have any Seine River like Monet. I’ve just got US 66 between Oklahoma and Los Angeles.”
I love paintings with words in them because they either clearly “say” what the painting is about, or, they divert you from its intention. It’s another method of communication outside of colour / shape / subject, all represented in typography. I could talk about this forever - the differences of the font of a STOP sign vs. Apple, Barbie’s logo vs. Stussy’s, etc. (Great Netflix episode of Abstract on the pioneer of typography / graphic design)... Back to Ruscha.
Ruscha is interested in the mundane and the stupid way things are. It’s a commentary, finally, on who and what we are. His artistic talents developed at a young age. He enjoyed drawing cartoons. Although his mother supported his decision to apply to art school, Ed's father was unhappy about the idea. When his son gained a place at Chouinard Art Institute in California, he changed his mind because he had read that Walt Disney often offered well-paid jobs to its graduates.
Two more paintings I leave with you, to make what you will. Look at it first - then read what the Museum’s label says about it.
Actual Size, 1962, Ed Ruscha
LACMA: In Actual Size, he includes a to-scale image of a flying can of Spam, elevating this budget-friendly lunchmeat to iconic status, similar to Warhol’s depiction of popular soup, cereal, and cleaning products.
OOF, 1962-3, Ed Ruscha
MoMa: “The single word, its guttural monosyllabic pronunciation, that’s what I was passionate about,” Ruscha has said of his early work. “Loud words, like slam, smash, honk.” The comic-book quality of these words reflects the Pop artists’ fascination with popular culture. Like OOF, many of his paintings have “a certain comedic value,”...and their humour is underlined by the paradox of their appearance in the silent medium of paint.
In the case of “Pay nothing until April”, his phrase echoes the language of advertising, where customers are encouraged to commit to a product now but not pay for it until a later date.
Katya