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Lot Essay
Conceptually rich and yet visually seductive, Ed Ruscha’s Do You Think She “Has It”? is one of the artist’s most fascinating works, made by painting egg yolk onto moiré silk. The sensual contrast between the yellow egg and the shimmery green silk is what gives this work its visual punch. In 1969, Ruscha had turned away from traditional painting materials and instead innovated with a wide range of organic substances, ranging from cherry juice and tea to salad dressing and vaseline. All of this ultimately led him back to painting again, and in the early 1970s, he incorporated whole phrases into his work, rather than the single words he used in the prior decade. Painted in 1974, Do You Think She “Has It”? is one of the more provocative paintings from the series, featuring one of the longest phrases in the group, in which the artist poses the viewer a direct question. Other examples can be found in major international museums, including Now Then, As I Was About to Say… (1974; Museum of Modern Art, New York) and Sand in the Vaseline (1974; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven).
The years 1971 to 1974 are widely considered to be the golden age of Ruscha’s linguistic exploration. During this era, Ruscha produced a fascinating and mysterious body of work in which the single words of the 1960s proliferate and grow, which Ruscha then gathers into ever more mysterious combinations. Painted in 1974, Do You Think She “Has It”? is an outstanding example of this radical and seductive moment in his career, made by painting raw egg yolk onto a beautiful piece of pale green moiré silk. Here, the effect is oddly beautiful. The textural contrast between the luxurious fabric and the pale yellow egg yolk is visually striking. The color and texture of the moiré silk conjures up the elegant couture of the 1950s and ‘60s, since moiré, along with crinoline and taffeta, was a popular material for gowns and party dresses at the time. Here, Ruscha’s cryptic text has marred the dress—an indelible stain on an otherwise virgin surface.
Having spent the long decade of the 1960s developing his iconic paintings of single words, by 1969, Ed Ruscha had reached an impasse. “There was a period when I couldn't even use paint,” he explained. “I had to move some way, and the only way to do this was to stain the canvas rather than to put a skin on it” (E. Ruscha, quoted in N. Benezra, Ed Ruscha, exh. cat., Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., 2000, p. 153). Ruscha began to experiment with all manner of organic substances. Some of these had ancient art historical origins, such as beet juice, used to dye fabric, and raw eggs, used to make egg tempera. Others were decidedly not traditional to art making, but appealed to the artist anyway. He used axle grease, mustard, Vaseline, Worcestershire sauce, and even Pepto Bismol. “Where it came from, who knows?” he remarked. ”I was not mystically directed by any great spirit from up above to move in that direction. Except that I felt it was a short-term playground for me to investigate” (E. Ruscha, quoted in P. Karlstrom, “Interview with Ruscha in His Hollywood Studio,” 1981, in A. Schwartz, Leave Any Information at the Signal: Writings, Interviews, Bits, Pages, Cambridge, 2002, p. 155).“The first work that I did involving vegetable matter and organic materials came out of a frustration with materials,” Ruscha has said, elaborating upon the origins of this small body of work. “I wanted to expand my ideas about materials and the value they have. I was concerned with the concept of staining something, rather than applying a film or coat or skin of paint on a canvas,” he said. “I had to open my eyes to all kinds of stains. [...] They made rather beautiful pictures sometimes. […] Each material had its own peculiarities that I began to like” (E. Ruscha, quoted in P. Karlstrom, Ibid., p. 155).
Ruscha has famously described this era in his early career as his “Romance with Liquids” phase. Indeed, Ruscha stopped painting altogether between 1969 and 1971 and instead devoted himself to the pictorial and conceptual possibilities of organic matter. In 1969, he put together an artist’s book called Stains, which was a boxed portfolio of seventy-five sheets of paper that were stained with a variety of unusual materials, including, among others, mustard, beer, axle grease, and blackcurrant pie. The final sheaf of the portfolio was marked with the artist’s own blood. Stains might well be understood as a performance piece, as it centers around the very act of smearing the pure sheet with a “stain.” Indeed, Ruscha has said the idea was not to create art but rather the opposite: “The stains were exactly what they were stated to be…I didn’t want it to look like art. I wanted it to look like a stain” (E. Ruscha, quoted in A. Schwartz, “Conversation with Edward Ruscha in His Studio,” 1999, in A. Schwartz, ed., op. cit., p. 371).
This was a period of radical experimentation for the artist. In 1970, Ruscha created what’s known as the “Chocolate Room” for the 35th Venice Biennale. There, Ruscha covered the walls of the American Pavilion in sheets of chocolate-lined paper, effectively creating an installation in which the sights and smells of the wafting chocolate resulted in a powerful, sensory experience. By 1973, however, Ruscha had found his way out of those formative experiments, to land on a new concept, wherein he used the same organic materials of the Stains (1969) to spell out unusual and provocative turns of phrase. Ruscha adopted an all-caps, no-nonsense font to spell out each phrase, which he later dubbed “Boy Scout Utility Modern.” He then incorporated materials other than canvas for the support. As in the present work, he used sumptuous fabrics like satin, crepe, raw linen, “waterfall rayon,” and taffeta. The contrast between the crispness of Ruscha’s chosen font, with its sharp edges and authoritarian look, and the messiness of his chosen material – especially when rendered on such beautiful fabrics—lies at the heart of this important body of work.
The years 1971 to 1974 are widely considered to be the golden age of Ruscha’s linguistic exploration. During this era, Ruscha produced a fascinating and mysterious body of work in which the single words of the 1960s proliferate and grow, which Ruscha then gathers into ever more mysterious combinations. Painted in 1974, Do You Think She “Has It”? is an outstanding example of this radical and seductive moment in his career, made by painting raw egg yolk onto a beautiful piece of pale green moiré silk. Here, the effect is oddly beautiful. The textural contrast between the luxurious fabric and the pale yellow egg yolk is visually striking. The color and texture of the moiré silk conjures up the elegant couture of the 1950s and ‘60s, since moiré, along with crinoline and taffeta, was a popular material for gowns and party dresses at the time. Here, Ruscha’s cryptic text has marred the dress—an indelible stain on an otherwise virgin surface.
Having spent the long decade of the 1960s developing his iconic paintings of single words, by 1969, Ed Ruscha had reached an impasse. “There was a period when I couldn't even use paint,” he explained. “I had to move some way, and the only way to do this was to stain the canvas rather than to put a skin on it” (E. Ruscha, quoted in N. Benezra, Ed Ruscha, exh. cat., Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., 2000, p. 153). Ruscha began to experiment with all manner of organic substances. Some of these had ancient art historical origins, such as beet juice, used to dye fabric, and raw eggs, used to make egg tempera. Others were decidedly not traditional to art making, but appealed to the artist anyway. He used axle grease, mustard, Vaseline, Worcestershire sauce, and even Pepto Bismol. “Where it came from, who knows?” he remarked. ”I was not mystically directed by any great spirit from up above to move in that direction. Except that I felt it was a short-term playground for me to investigate” (E. Ruscha, quoted in P. Karlstrom, “Interview with Ruscha in His Hollywood Studio,” 1981, in A. Schwartz, Leave Any Information at the Signal: Writings, Interviews, Bits, Pages, Cambridge, 2002, p. 155).“The first work that I did involving vegetable matter and organic materials came out of a frustration with materials,” Ruscha has said, elaborating upon the origins of this small body of work. “I wanted to expand my ideas about materials and the value they have. I was concerned with the concept of staining something, rather than applying a film or coat or skin of paint on a canvas,” he said. “I had to open my eyes to all kinds of stains. [...] They made rather beautiful pictures sometimes. […] Each material had its own peculiarities that I began to like” (E. Ruscha, quoted in P. Karlstrom, Ibid., p. 155).
Ruscha has famously described this era in his early career as his “Romance with Liquids” phase. Indeed, Ruscha stopped painting altogether between 1969 and 1971 and instead devoted himself to the pictorial and conceptual possibilities of organic matter. In 1969, he put together an artist’s book called Stains, which was a boxed portfolio of seventy-five sheets of paper that were stained with a variety of unusual materials, including, among others, mustard, beer, axle grease, and blackcurrant pie. The final sheaf of the portfolio was marked with the artist’s own blood. Stains might well be understood as a performance piece, as it centers around the very act of smearing the pure sheet with a “stain.” Indeed, Ruscha has said the idea was not to create art but rather the opposite: “The stains were exactly what they were stated to be…I didn’t want it to look like art. I wanted it to look like a stain” (E. Ruscha, quoted in A. Schwartz, “Conversation with Edward Ruscha in His Studio,” 1999, in A. Schwartz, ed., op. cit., p. 371).
This was a period of radical experimentation for the artist. In 1970, Ruscha created what’s known as the “Chocolate Room” for the 35th Venice Biennale. There, Ruscha covered the walls of the American Pavilion in sheets of chocolate-lined paper, effectively creating an installation in which the sights and smells of the wafting chocolate resulted in a powerful, sensory experience. By 1973, however, Ruscha had found his way out of those formative experiments, to land on a new concept, wherein he used the same organic materials of the Stains (1969) to spell out unusual and provocative turns of phrase. Ruscha adopted an all-caps, no-nonsense font to spell out each phrase, which he later dubbed “Boy Scout Utility Modern.” He then incorporated materials other than canvas for the support. As in the present work, he used sumptuous fabrics like satin, crepe, raw linen, “waterfall rayon,” and taffeta. The contrast between the crispness of Ruscha’s chosen font, with its sharp edges and authoritarian look, and the messiness of his chosen material – especially when rendered on such beautiful fabrics—lies at the heart of this important body of work.