Ruscha’s use of text is iconic. Executed in 1972, this particular lot features a single
word, Spots, in a carefree style levitating from the centre of the piece
against a smoky, monochromatic atmosphere. Despite the small-scale of the text,
Spots demonstrates the agency possessed by a single word, thus inviting
the spectator to view words as images and read images as words. Through his
laconic aesthetic, Ruscha investigates the complex debate on the function of
words and the evasive interplay between image and word.

Ruscha’s particular interest in the ambiguity between the linguistic signifier and the
concept signified is emphasised by his deliberate choice of words and phrases.
When asked about his inspiration he stated: "I am observing that these words,
which sometimes represent objects and meanings, are made of these squiggly
little forms we call an alphabet." (Rachel Cooke, Ed Ruscha: There's room for
saying things in bright shiny colours, The Guardian, September 2010). Spots illustrates
Ruscha’s extensive experimentation with the pictorial and the vernacular while
blurring the distinctions between words and images by isolating and recombining
them in a singular manner.

Ruscha’s artistic training is rooted in commercial art and at the beginning was
associated with Pop art. In 1956 he moved from his natal town of Nebraska to
Los Angeles where he was exposed to the work of Jasper Johns, Robert
Rauschenberg and Roy Lichtenstein. Since the early 1960s, he has been regularly
experimenting with the depiction of words alluding to popular culture and
every-day life in Los Angeles. This interest in words ultimately provides him
with his core inspirational theme. The non-painterly body of work that Ruscha
developed between 1963 and 1975 created the intrinsic value that was later
further developed, alongside Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holser, in the use of
entire phrases in his works that marked the distinctive characteristic of
post-Pop Art.