Ed Ruscha

Ed Ruscha at Gagosian Gallery

Laura McLean-Ferris

Laura McLean-Ferris is a NY Arts London correspondent. Ed Ruscha is a Los Angeles-based artist whose work was on view in the exhibition Busted Glass at Gagosian Gallery in London in November 2007.

These small, light paintings of broken glass cut through Ruscha’s previous work. They further strip the content of his book Nine Swimming Pools and a Broken Glass and the silhouettes of paned glass windows, which often featured in his text works from the 80s. The unavoidable reading of Nine Swimming Pools posits broken glass as a disruptive and deviant element within a visual repertoire of stillness and calm leisure.

The first association is of broken glass lurking at the bottom of a luxurious place. It threatens to cut open a foot; the subsequent shedding of blood and tears inevitably follows. The violence in the action of breaking glass, and its shattering, glittering sound, is an inescapable element of the subject matter. Although many of the paintings in the exhibition are as sublimely still as swimming pools, the act of the break–the fissure and the smash–is violent.

In terms of Ruscha’s oeuvre, it is clear that each piece of broken glass can be read as though it is a piece of text. The combinations of breakages, light, and color become syntax for reading the fractures and the context of their breakage. A large crack that forms a hole in glass on a red background becomes a frustrated fist. A lightly lit splinter on a pale fawn background becomes both banal and beautiful. The artful nature of each breakage forms an aesthetic reminiscent of detailed crime scene photography. A small action of violence is captured in each image in a detailed and forensic manner.

Furthermore, the busted glass can almost be read as a modern vanitas, from the Latin meaning emptiness. Commenting on transience and meaninglessness, the action of painting broken glass references both futility and longevity. It is reminiscent of the museum case, and litter on the street, as well as the vain action inherent to the reflective surface of the material, and the self-referential nature of the work. If there is a fine line between the sublime and the banal, Ruscha’s work just manages to occupy the space of this hairline crack.