Ed Ruscha: Paintings Until 23 January at Gagosian, 541 West 24th Street, Manhattan The gallery is debuting eight new paintings by Ed Ruscha, one of America’s most significant living painters. Six of the canvases are two feet high and eight feet long, and each expands upon elements of the artist's lexicon that have, over the nearly six decades and counting of his career, become cornerstones of the zeitgeist. There are three iconographic landmarks explored in this show: flags, tires, and mountains. They are on occasion remixed, such as in the painting Hardscrabble (2020) which features a mountainscape at sunset, above which a massive tire tread floats in the sky. This single painting almost serves as a map to the cardinal points of Ruscha’s mastery: the sunset becomes a vehicle in which the seasoned painter can show off his trademark gradients, which he has revelled since at least the 1970s; the mountainscape allows him to display a technical prowess that is, though as efficient as they come, still full of life and joy and uniquely his; and the massive floating tire tread, along with the title, offers a glimpse at the oblique humour that Ruscha has sustained all these years.—Wallace Ludel