Adios

At the end of the 1960s, Ed Ruscha’s “romance with liquids” produced some of his most iconic and ingenious work. “That was about 1966,” said the artist, “and I had just seen the end of the road with a certain kind of painting I was doing. I don’t know why it happened, but close-up views of liquids somehow began to interest me. And then I started making little setups on tables, and painting them, using syrup, and studying what happens” (E. Ruscha, quoted in “A Conversation Between Walter Hopps and Ed Ruscha,” in Y.-A. Bois, Edward Ruscha: Romance with Liquids, exh. cat., Gagosian Gallery, New York, 1993, p. 102). Ruscha does not always make identifable the liquids which he masterfully renders into print, yet they recall a diverse range of liquids in thickness and finish as they whimsically float across the page. The physical spill of the liquid, in making the shape of letters completely original due to the random fall of gravity, gives these works a freshness and vitality which transcends the medium.