Ed Ruscha

Gagosian Gallery, London
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate. Condition: This work is in very good condition.
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Despite its deceivingly straightforward appearance, Amen sets up a number of complex dialogues between art and language. In the painting we are confronted with a rather familiar word, well-known from a religious context or as a declaration of affirmation. The word’s appearance, however, suggests something more complex. The enormous size of the letter A is deeply ambiguous - as is its relation to the background of the work. Although this strange appearance could refer to the different ways in which the first syllable of the word can be pronounced - which shifts its contextualisation from the profane to the vernacular - the work seems to escape such a singular interpretation.

This profound ambiguity in Ruscha’s famous word paintings, points to one of the most fundamental issues at stake in contemporary philosophy - the fact that language is not a transparent system of representation. Indeed, the very possibility of language to communicate without actually conveying any content, as Ruscha has done in Amen, demonstrates how opaque this system of signification in fact is. But Ruscha’s practice goes beyond the deconstructive enterprise of linguistic philosophy, and explores an often overlooked dimension of language: its physicality and materiality. Pronouncing, or even spelling out the word 'amen' in Ruscha’s painting, will never be able to convey the specificity of its painted manifestation.

This thoroughly original investigation into the material of language makes Ruscha’s practice exceptionally relevant. Besides its conceptual dimension, moreover, Ruscha’s exploration of painting in relation to language, cinema and advertising (as well as his experiments with non-painterly materials such as gunpowder and blackberry juice) also constitutes a profound engagement with the medium of painting. The present work is an excellent example of this, as its non-painterly appearance and confusing sense of space equally refer to advertising or cinema - making it conceptually as well as visually a complex and fascinating example of Ed Ruscha’s work.