On November 24, 1963, a crowd of reporters watched as Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged perpetrator of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, at point-black range as Oswald was being escorted through a Dallas police station. Here, Noland uses a detail from a widely viewed press photo, reenacting the moment of the murder while also intensifying the brutality of the original image. Hole punches evoking bullet holes punctuate Oswald’s throat, mouth, and left eye, muddling his identity in like manner to the work’s title, which replaces his name with “Oozewald.” Noland designed the work’s perforated metal frame, which lends weight to the fragility of the collage itself.
Gallery label from 2020