Ruscha at MoMA

I approached the Ed Ruscha retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art with low expectations. From numerous auction, museum and art gallery shows I was very familiar with Ruscha’s playful use of a single word in fanciful type on a plain background, made of gunpowder or other unusual medium. Clever and attractive, but how many can you see before the impact dissipates?
Not to worry. Yes, these Ruschas were there, but a small part of a large exhibition. The first gallery alone was worth the visit: it showed Ruscha becoming an artist, with collages, prints, photos and paintings from his student years and just beyond, wild with invention but his sense of composition, color and humor was already evident. In fact, the low point came at the end: a large monochromatic “OOF.” The rest of the show was variety with a consistent sensibility: paintings large, small and extra-wide, gas stations, landscapes, clocks as well as words. At Louisiana Museum outside Copenhagen five or so years ago we saw a Ruscha exhibition consisting of large paintings of Matterhorn-like mountains with large words in white across their face. It was boring there, but having only one wall of three examples amid this larger show they were an interesting change of pace.
One of my favorite works was a surprise: in addition to a series in which he replicated favorite pop records and their album covers he painted a larger record against a glowing background with an empty label and he called it, “Unidentified Hit Record” (1980). The final gallery, showing works from the last 15 years, was another revelation: beautifully painted acrylics in odd sizes, again, but beautiful colors and no words. I would never have guessed they were “Ruschas.” The final painting was a gorgeous ultra-realistic representation of a guardrail with bokashi-like black background and yellow and grey squares and a mysterious ghost stripe that add a Mondrianish abstract touch. But who else who would make a major painting of a guardrail?

Also opening at MoMA on our visit was a “dossier” Picasso show, assembling works made in the summer of 1921 at Fontainebleau, many brought together for the first time since then. The anchors of the show were four large canvases: two versions each of Three Women at a Spring and Three Musicians, one from Philadelphia and the other MoMA’s. The highlight for both Siri and me, however, was a series of line drawings Picasso made of the rented house at Fontainebleau and his wife. There was no hint of Picasso’s Cubism, nor of his puffy Classicizing. Just magical, Matisse-like sketchy illustrations–boy, could he draw. The show’s theme, spelled out in advertising, was What Was He Thinking, because the Musicians, famous examples of his Analytic Cubism, with collage-like blocks of bright colors, seem to have little to do with the heavy, volumetric Women reminiscent of Roman statues. Neither style is a favorite, but no matter. A small painting at the exit door encapsulates the exhibition: in ten or so small squares Picasso paints two small hands and a face in his Classic style, five examples of his Analytic Cubism and an odd sketch of a couple dancing. What was he thinking?