The gallery shows canvases with "Mountains", medium-format mountain landscapes with text, i.e. strictly speaking single letters, e.g. an E and a Z float in front of the landscape, pronounced in English this results in the word EA-SY, i.e. EASY. A similar play on words or picture riddles (which, by the way, is typically American) results from the large Y (Ypsilon) that appears in front of the mountains in another landscape: pronounced WHY. The levels that Ruscha brings together are incommensurable, the mountain landscape that has congealed into a cliché is a foil for abstract signs, but the levels do not sound meaningful together. This play with levels of meaning, language and images (do the letters float in the foreground of the landscape or are they completely separated from it?) Is characteristic of Ruscha's work.
The so-called "Metro plots" show a different type of landscape: they are to a certain extent simplified maps (of the USA, for example LAS VEGAS TO BOSTON) or city maps (for Los Angeles, for example in SUNSET, DeLONGPRE) that show a grid of lines that only goes through the street names written on it can be recognized as a street network. Ruscha also refers to a certain abstract painting tradition (e.g. Mondrian, BROADWAY BOOGIE-WOOGIE). The pictures and works on paper appear almost printed by the grid point-like technique in black on white or black on untreated canvas, but they are realized with purely painterly means.
"Hints of narrow pop culture meanings in conventionally insignificant elements and vice versa are the actual material (...) with which Ruscha deals with what has become classic and casual." (Diederich Diederichsen).