Curator, Ana Torok: Ruscha’s working in a studio in Hollywood beginning in 1965, and he can see the Hollywood sign outside of his window. He said that if he could read the sign, he’d know it was safe to go outside. Otherwise, it was too smoggy and he should stay indoors.
Then in 1976, he is invited to create a billboard in Los Angeles, and he recreates the sign, but he reverses it, so that someone driving in their car past the billboard might glimpse it in their rearview mirror.
Architect, Frank Gehry: The Hollywood sign is still a major identity of LA. I always thought that was a weird way to represent the city: cut out letters on the hillside. Why are they desecrating this beautiful hillside with that crap? So I think that was Ed’s commentary. He was saying, “Okay, if you like that goddamn shit, I’m going to make it art.”
Designer, Gail Anderson: His Hollywood paintings, I saw those before I ever actually saw the Hollywood sign, and so in my head it was gonna be as majestic and cool as the paintings. When I finally got to see it, it was like, “That’s what it is?”
The paintings are what’s stuck with me more than the actual sign. It’s all so in my head what California was before I got to see California.