Actual Size
Ed Ruscha
ED RUSHCA, 1961. OIL ON CANVAS.
Words, humour, and the great American iconography are the three themes that underpin so much of Ruscha’s work. Actual Size is a perfect synthesis of these ideas in this period, operating on multiple levels as both an artwork and a visual joke. Painted the same year that Warhol’s Campbell Soup Cans were shown, it was part of a new movement in art that co-opted the insignia and objects of American Life and elevated them into art forms. Yet Ruscha went one step further than Warhol – rather than simply depicting the product and its wordmark, he took inspiration from Chuck Yeager, an early astronaut and flying ace, who described took issue with the new, heavily automated spaceships that reduced their pilots to simple being ‘Spam in a Can’. Ruscha’s Spam takes flight, leaving a streak behind it as it soars across the white field. This is a monumental work that brings us in and out of context, recontextualising the word and the product while also serving as an ode to the great American processed meat.