This exhibition presents a view of Ruscha’s conceptual arc, focusing especially on the passage of time and representations of change.

Among Ruscha’s earliest works with Mixografia is Clock from 1994. With its hands missing, Ruscha renders the clock timeless and its functionality undone. There is an emphasis on the physical manifestation of entropy in his edition New Wood/Old Wood. Ruscha depicts a cut plank at two distinct stages of weathering, indicating the process of decay in its warped fibers and darkening hues.

Leaving Omaha for California in the early 1960s, Ruscha became fascinated by the ubiquitous yet banal architecture seen along U.S. Route 66. In Ghost Station, he revisits the Standard Oil filling station but removes its color and thus the context of time entirely. Whereas in previous renditions of this image Ruscha uses split-fountain gradients and lighting effects to suggest atmospheric conditions and the position of the sun in the sky, in Ghost Station he limits all formal considerations to sharp lines created by cast shadows from the artwork’s low-relief impression. In his 2014 series Rusty Signs, the effects of decay are visible on these objects as one might find them in the world at various points of neglect and disrepair. The signs become backdrops for messages that carry a renewed emotional resonance beyond their formerly instructional purpose.