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Lot Essay
This work will be included in a forthcoming volume of Edward Ruscha: Catalogue Raisonné of the Works on Paper.
Ed Ruscha's Hope exemplifies the perfect combination of language and image, the result of investigating words without context to become objects of extended contemplation. The fact that Ruscha can place a word in an abstract manner is what makes his style uniquely his own and has influenced a generation of younger artists working with text today. It is figural, minimal, surreal, conceptual, and all of the above; his art template is impossible to label. What makes Ruscha's word drawings undeniably brilliant is the fact that they transform a universally recognisable form into a transcendental essence.
Though only four small letters, Hope offers a wealth of meaning and interpretation. Automatically one can connect it with Ruscha's Catholic background; however, the word on its own has been freed from any specific context. Any meaning it can generate for the viewer is not final. Ruscha has demonstrated a powerful word in a no man's land environment of black pigment. The word has been cut free from a recognisable atmosphere, floating in a twilight background, a trademark of the artist. Many of his images exude a relaxed Californian tone. The colour and loose form allows a cooling effect to the word. The letters seem to dissolve into a mist, a trail left to us to follow with our own thoughts. The artist does not force any meaning or an answer from the spectator. There is no right way to look at Hope, it is quite the opposite as Ruscha calmly invites us to infinitely contemplate.
'I guess I'm a child of communications, and I have always felt attracted to anything that had to do with that phenomenon of people speaking to each other. Maybe that itself becomes synonymous with popular culture in that newspapers, magazines-printing, specifically-have had the most dramatic effect on me. Printing was it, to me. When I first became attracted to the idea of being an artist, painting was the last method; it was almost an obsolete, archaic form of communication. So I suppose it developed itself from that-into the idea of questioning the printed word. Then in questioning, I began to see the printed word, and it took off from there.' (E. Ruscha quoted in 'Interview with Ruscha in His Hollywood Studio', Leave any Information At the Signal: Writings, Interviews, Bits, Pages, Boston, 2002, pp. 150-151).
Ed Ruscha's Hope exemplifies the perfect combination of language and image, the result of investigating words without context to become objects of extended contemplation. The fact that Ruscha can place a word in an abstract manner is what makes his style uniquely his own and has influenced a generation of younger artists working with text today. It is figural, minimal, surreal, conceptual, and all of the above; his art template is impossible to label. What makes Ruscha's word drawings undeniably brilliant is the fact that they transform a universally recognisable form into a transcendental essence.
Though only four small letters, Hope offers a wealth of meaning and interpretation. Automatically one can connect it with Ruscha's Catholic background; however, the word on its own has been freed from any specific context. Any meaning it can generate for the viewer is not final. Ruscha has demonstrated a powerful word in a no man's land environment of black pigment. The word has been cut free from a recognisable atmosphere, floating in a twilight background, a trademark of the artist. Many of his images exude a relaxed Californian tone. The colour and loose form allows a cooling effect to the word. The letters seem to dissolve into a mist, a trail left to us to follow with our own thoughts. The artist does not force any meaning or an answer from the spectator. There is no right way to look at Hope, it is quite the opposite as Ruscha calmly invites us to infinitely contemplate.
'I guess I'm a child of communications, and I have always felt attracted to anything that had to do with that phenomenon of people speaking to each other. Maybe that itself becomes synonymous with popular culture in that newspapers, magazines-printing, specifically-have had the most dramatic effect on me. Printing was it, to me. When I first became attracted to the idea of being an artist, painting was the last method; it was almost an obsolete, archaic form of communication. So I suppose it developed itself from that-into the idea of questioning the printed word. Then in questioning, I began to see the printed word, and it took off from there.' (E. Ruscha quoted in 'Interview with Ruscha in His Hollywood Studio', Leave any Information At the Signal: Writings, Interviews, Bits, Pages, Boston, 2002, pp. 150-151).