‘Cool to the core,’ the Hayward Gallery has played host to ‘Ed Ruscha: Fifty years of painting’ to an almighty reception since October. Now with only six days left, there’s precious little time to take a look at Ruscha’s first solo retrospective ever to be held in London, which none other than Stella McCartney described as ‘…sleek…sharp…stylish…simply stunning. He is his work.’ As it’s made up of some 70 paintings we lose out on his noted photographic and paper works, but we are able to wholly appreciate his individual approach to translating contemporary America onto canvas to notable effect. Strong visuals, cool pastiches and clean execution are the essential components to the mid-westerner’s signatory style.
His ability to extract cultural signs and national motifs and load them with meaning is striking. His pictorial imagination allows him to float above the labels his fellow contemporaries had stuck on – Pop, Dada et al don’t really fit the bill as you’ll see for yourself. Ruscha has carved out a truly singular approach to painting. Fuelled by his obsession with typography and abstraction, he scrambles American lightweight commercialism into more engaging pieces more engaging – petrol stations, logos, letters are depicted in such a way their shapes, angles and colours take on greater significance than within their American landscape. It is this fixation with the physicality of the country’s icons – from the highway, the street, the prairie – that drove Ruscha to turn them on their head and turn heads at the same time.
Standard Station 1966, copyright of Ed Ruscha, courtesy of Private Collection, 2009 Photo: Paul Ruscha
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