Ed Ruscha's "Tom Sawyer Paintings" series, exhibited at the Gagosian in Paris from October 19 to December 22, 2022, represents a distinctive shift in the artist's focus towards the portrayal of simple wooden slats, drawing inspiration from Mark Twain's classic American novel "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (1876). This collection marked Ruscha's first solo exhibition of paintings in Paris, displaying ten new paintings alongside a new hologram (Gagosian).
Ruscha, renowned for his integration of text and image that explores the American landscape and culture, veers from his characteristic use of gnomic texts in this series. Instead, he delves into the naturalistic representation of wood, a material that recurs throughout his oeuvre as both subject and medium. This thematic choice is directly linked to a notable episode in Twain's novel, where Tom Sawyer cunningly persuades his friends to whitewash a fence for him, a chore he dreads. Ruscha's paintings not only reflect this scene but also extend his long-standing exploration of themes such as realism, modernist abstraction, and the American vernacular (Gagosian) (GalleriesNow).
The "Tom Sawyer Paintings" embody a rich tapestry of allusions to Americana and Ruscha's fascination with the decay and age of materials, particularly wood. This interest is further contextualized by the artist's engagement with the physicality and metaphorical implications of wooden planks, which art historian Briony Fer describes as both a literal and figurative block within Ruscha's visual narratives (Gagosian) (GalleriesNow).
Though devoid of explicit text, the series subtly engages with the concept of verbal expression through the arrangement and portrayal of the wooden slats, which might be seen as reminiscent of typographical elements in their structured composition. The paintings thus maintain Ruscha's longstanding dialogue between text and image, even in their apparent focus on abstraction and materiality. The exhibition also included additional works that riff on wordplay, such as "Metro Petro Neuro Psycho" and "Guardrail" (2021), alongside the hologram, enriching the thematic complexity and visual diversity of the series (Gagosian) (GalleriesNow).
The "Tom Sawyer Paintings" exhibition was accompanied by a bilingual English and French catalogue, featuring new essays by Mark Godfrey and Ralph Rugoff that provide critical and historical contexts for Ruscha's work. This publication not only documents the showcased artworks but also situates Ruscha's continued relevance and innovation within the broader spectrum of contemporary art (Rizzoli New York).