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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming Edward Ruscha Catalogue Raisonné of the Works on Paper, Volume 2: 1977-1997, edited by Lisa Turvey.
Known perhaps as much for his works on paper as for his paintings, Ed Ruscha’s Yes is an important and immediately identifiable example of his acclaimed mid-career period. Evocative and dramatic, Yes transforms the titular word, one of the most commonly used in the English language, into a large, cascading composition on paper. Yes deploys deep, cascading red letters descending in size from upper left to lower right on a thick, gently undulating background and illuminated with phantom spotlights. Executed at the same time as his widely-lauded City Lights series of square paintings, the affinity between Yes and that body of work is striking and unmistakable. By using a simple, ubiquitous and largely innocuous word, Ruscha draws the viewer’s attention towards the physicality of each letter and its place in the overall composition while simultaneously investigating the color palette that would come to define his late-‘80s output. With its diagonal composition, its connection to the City Lights series is again laid bare.
Yes is a testament to Ruscha’s quiet dual-mastery of composition and color and his ability to suggest space and depth. Unlike the City Lights series, which provides a concrete spatial context via a blurred background grid over which the words float, Yes places a high degree of faith in the viewer. Discouraging a simple reading of a flat, graphic surface, the work seems to imply a forward thrusting, or perhaps receding, three-dimensionality. Cutting to the essence of the City Lights series and the driving artistic objectives behind it, Yes is an example of Ruscha’s work at its most elegant and effective.
Known perhaps as much for his works on paper as for his paintings, Ed Ruscha’s Yes is an important and immediately identifiable example of his acclaimed mid-career period. Evocative and dramatic, Yes transforms the titular word, one of the most commonly used in the English language, into a large, cascading composition on paper. Yes deploys deep, cascading red letters descending in size from upper left to lower right on a thick, gently undulating background and illuminated with phantom spotlights. Executed at the same time as his widely-lauded City Lights series of square paintings, the affinity between Yes and that body of work is striking and unmistakable. By using a simple, ubiquitous and largely innocuous word, Ruscha draws the viewer’s attention towards the physicality of each letter and its place in the overall composition while simultaneously investigating the color palette that would come to define his late-‘80s output. With its diagonal composition, its connection to the City Lights series is again laid bare.
Yes is a testament to Ruscha’s quiet dual-mastery of composition and color and his ability to suggest space and depth. Unlike the City Lights series, which provides a concrete spatial context via a blurred background grid over which the words float, Yes places a high degree of faith in the viewer. Discouraging a simple reading of a flat, graphic surface, the work seems to imply a forward thrusting, or perhaps receding, three-dimensionality. Cutting to the essence of the City Lights series and the driving artistic objectives behind it, Yes is an example of Ruscha’s work at its most elegant and effective.