Ed Ruscha – Industrial Strength Sleep, 1989

5 October 2017 · Paris

Ed Ruscha's Industrial Strength Sleep (1989) commands the gallery wall at an angle that makes the text feel less like a painting and more like a declaration. The words stack in blocky white capitals across a dark, smoky field — INDUSTRIAL / STRENGTH / SLEEP — the language of a product guarantee applied to the most involuntary of human acts. The museum label sits quietly to the right, the only confirmation that what you're looking at is art and not instruction.