Ed Ruscha: Ribbon Words

In this scholarly examination of Ed Ruscha’s seminal Ribbon Word drawings, curator Dieter Buchhart, alongside contributors Glenn O’Brien and Alexandra Schwartz, presents the first comprehensive analysis of this pivotal body of work that crystallized the artist’s engagement with language as both signifier and material presence. Through meticulous reproductions of more than fifty masterworks, predominantly created between 1966 and 1973, the volume traces how Ruscha transmuted conventional calligraphic gestures into spatially ambiguous trompe l’oeil constructions that hover between textual legibility and phenomenological objecthood.

The book situates these works within the broader theoretical discourse of 1960s conceptualism while exploring their distinctive material vocabulary, particularly Ruscha’s pioneering use of gunpowder as a drawing medium, which enabled him to achieve an unprecedented synthesis of linguistic content and sculptural presence. Through rigorous formal analysis and extensive archival research, supported by loans from major institutions including MoMA and the Hirshhorn Museum, this definitive volume reveals how Ruscha’s Ribbon Word drawings not only advanced his career-long investigation of language’s material and conceptual possibilities, but also anticipated contemporary artistic strategies that probe the increasingly complex relationship between text, object, and meaning in visual culture.

Published by Edward Tyler Nahem Fine Art, New York, NY, 2016

Essays by Dieter Buchhart, Glenn O’Brien, and Alexandra Schwartz

Designed by Joseph Guglietti

Hardcover, fully illustrated, 104 pages

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