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"In a way Ruscha’s work falls between Warhol’s and Richter’s. On the one hand, like Warhol, he says he is not much interested in traditional European art. On the other hand, like Richter, he actually treats with old forms like landscape. But he, too, transforms them utterly. His landscape is the landscape of Los Angeles, so he sees it through the windshield of a car and it is mediated by billboards and movies. Like Warhol he is fully committed to what it is to be a modern subject. Yet like Richter he holds on to painting even as he shows how changed it is. Yes, he experimented with strange materials to be sure. He was interested in what he called “liquid painting”, so he used bizarre fluids to make some of his images. In my chapter on Ruscha I focus on his “deadpan” effects. Like Warhol, he flattens out the effect of his photographs and the colours in his paintings often feel very medicated. But in each instance there is a little note of ambiguity. This is especially the case in his word paintings. He calls it the “huh?” effect. So even though his work seems very flat there is always a riddle that keeps us engaged."