Ed Ruscha

Opening: Saturday 24 May, 4 – 7 PM

Zander Galerie Paris is pleased to announce its upcoming exhibition dedicated to American artist Ed Ruscha, coinciding with Paris Gallery Weekend. The exhibition presents a curated selection of five paintings from Ruscha’s Cityscapes series, created between 1994 and 1997. These works exemplify Ruscha’s exploration of the interplay between language, meaning, and abstraction, reflecting his distinctive approach to visual expression.​ Ed Ruscha, a pivotal figure in contemporary art, has reshaped the boundaries of visual expression through his iconic works that blend text, imagery, and cultural commentary.

Born in 1937 in Oklahoma City, Ed Ruscha moved to Los Angeles in 1956 to study at what is now the California Institute of the Arts. The city’s urban sprawl, architecture, and iconic lifestyle soon became central to his artistic vision. While his work is often linked to Pop Art, Ruscha transcends traditional labels, blending elements of Pop and Conceptual Art to develop a distinctly singular voice – once described by author J.G. Ballard as “the coolest gaze in American art.” A constant theme in his practice is the use of painted words, rooted in his early experience as a commercial artist and inspired by billboard culture, typography, and advertising. These text-based works reflect his ongoing fascination with the shifting relationship between language and visual form.

The Cityscapes series – central to the exhibition – highlights Ruscha’s fascination with the tension between legibility and abstraction. Each canvas presents minimal, monochrome backgrounds punctuated by blank rectangular forms that correspond to ominous or enigmatic phrases, often written below the image. Some of these messages are derived from actual ransom notes; others are fabricated. In one of the featured works, the text blocks are rendered using bleach, symbolizing a literal and metaphorical erasure of meaning. Resembling censorship bars or graffiti cover-ups, these voids evoke notions of redaction, silence, and the fragmented nature of communication. As Ruscha explained: “I’ve seen ransom notes before, and they’re kind of frightening. I was very intrigued by their visual quality, by the fact that they are made with different little cut-out letters. Somehow, these ransom notes, and my interest in ‘censor strips’ and ‘vacancies’, began to merge into one pictorial element. That is basically where this series comes from.”

Ruscha’s career spans over six decades and encompasses painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, and artist books. His work has been the subject of major solo exhibitions at leading institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the British Museum, London and the Centre Pompidou, Paris. His artworks are held in prominent public collections such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Tate, London; the Getty Museum, Los Angeles and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Press release (French)