Edward Ruscha
Acrylic on canvas
Main Library, Downtown Miami

California artist Edward Ruscha is best known for his exploration of the meaning and power of words.  In this, his first public art commission, Ruscha took a quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, floated each word separately on a sky-like ground, and installed the 360° mural in a continuous frieze in the first floor rotunda of the Main Library.

In a second phase of the commission, Ruscha designed sixty related lunettes (moon-shaped paintings) for placement throughout the library’s two floors.  The backgrounds of the lunettes are painted black, white, and gray, creating a unifying theme reflecting the spirit of black ink printed on white paper.  These works contain provocative and whimsical bits of language, serving to stimulate thoughts on the nature of language.