Ed Ruscha: Voice Mail Black

Published by Hamilton Press, Ed Ruscha’s lithograph depicts the term “voice mail” as two distinct words, each in underscored white capital letters and curving around the center of a black field. The “background” is printed in black ink, while the white lettering reveals the unprinted paper. (This edition is the second state of Voice Mail White, a separate edition in which the text is printed in black and gray ink on white paper.) The words appear to have been smeared, lending an impression of rapid motion, with the inverted MAIL seeming to trail the upright VOICE in never-ending pursuit.

The print belongs to a recent body of work that also includes paintings on linen and paper. “The point here,” writes art historian Lisa Turvey on these “swiped” compositions, “is that these phrases seem newly mobile and, in turn, newly charged.” Ruscha’s use of Garamond, a more classical typeface than his conspicuously plain Boy Scout Utility Modern, also establishes a mismatch between its formal refinement and the words’ playful disruption.