Reading Ed Ruscha, 2017
5:46
Digital video


[Reading Ed Ruscha is a single-channel video in diptych form, on the right showing images of text paintings by Ed Ruscha and on the left a pre-literate child who is “reading” the paintings based on their visual cues. Because Ruscha has in the past expressed an ambivalent relationship to the language in his paintings, characterizing them as still-lifes— “Those words were like flowers in a vase”— the 4-year-old performs the role of ideal viewer, treating the texts as formal and affective clues to the overall meaning of the paintings. ]