In several respects, the great Los Angeles artist Ed Ruscha seems like an ideal candidate for a sweeping, career-long retrospective. With his distinctively incisive voice carried over the course of his practice, Ruscha has often taken a motivic approach to his works, constantly finding new angles to explore previously used techniques or subjects.

Yet in other respects, Ruscha’s work would appear to shun the prospect of such an exhibition. In constant internal dialogue, his oeuvre often poses contradictions or ambivalences across the years, making linear narratives difficult to define.

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Further, the artist’s casual anti-institutionalism shown across his life seems to conflict with the forum of a museum gallery in general. Indeed, there is a stark irony to the show’s inclusion of his 1979 word painting “I Don’t Want No Retrospective.”

In this tension, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art presents its newest exhibition “ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN,” the latest culmination of a long-standing relationship between LACMA — which boasts over 500 Ruscha works in its permanent collection — and the show’s titular artist. Shown at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan last fall, the collection of over 250 works now receives salient public display in the city that has so often served as Ruscha’s metropolitan muse.

In conversation with Michael Govan earlier this month, Ruscha discussed his artistic process: “All these things that come to me; it’s a little like bolts in a blender.”

Certainly, the artist’s biography has factored heavily in these rattling bits of ideating hardware. Born in Nebraska and raised in Oklahoma City, Ruscha transplanted himself in Southern California at the age of 18, having made his westward road trip across the country to study at the Chouinard Art Institute — now the California Institute of the Arts. While initially seeking work in commercial advertising and graphic design, his creative impulses drew him toward founding a career in art — finding his full stride by the 1960s.

LACMA’s exhibition is careful to underscore these influences as they surface throughout Ruscha’s career. His background in commercial art immediately looms large, readily observable in his early paintings focusing on single words like “OOF” and “Boss,” or even the brand name “SPAM.”

Ruscha’s specific stylization of these words reveals his careful attention to the powers of typography, linguistics and the marketing process. As these single words stare back from the canvas — most literally in the case of “OOF,” with its two eye-like O’s — Ruscha challenges his audience to play with their preconceptions of how words work and how they serve aesthetic functions.

This acute sense for recontextualizing familiar elements of our society continues throughout Ruscha’s practice, especially as he taps into the power of key fixtures from Angeleno iconography. His approaches to these images are infinitely varied: One gallery features a screen print of the Hollywood sign made with Pepto Bismol and caviar, across from the Norms La Cienega Coffee Shop set ablaze. In these jarring presentations of recognizable images, Ruscha challenges his audience to deconstruct ready-made perceptions and form new ideas about old objects.

Yet Ruscha’s style is anything but heavy-handed: He characteristically demonstrates a deadpan humor and levity, even when operating in his weightiest dialectics. In his word paintings, he utilizes devices like onomatopoeia, alliteration and wordplay to their maximum effect. For instance, one 1984 work reads “Brave Men Run in My Family” — implicitly, the canvas asks the tongue-in-cheek question: What do the brave men run from?

Perhaps “NOW THEN” is at its most charming with the return of Ruscha’s installation “Chocolate Room.” First shown at the Venice Biennale in 1970, this reiteration of the work consists of printed wall panelings of actual chocolate covering the four walls of a small room. Enveloped in a confectionery perimeter, the floral aroma of the candy fills the air — initially sweet, but soon revulsive. With this larger-than-life installation, Ruscha challenges the audience to confront the practical realities of Wonka-esque childhood fantasies from years past.

At the heart of this frenetic, lively show, LACMA poignantly displays for the first time the 1965-68 work “Los Angeles County Museum on Fire.” Another victim of Ruscha’s apparent pyromania, the painting features a striking compositional contrast: The fire is relegated to the left side alone.

“The left-hand side of the painting and the right-hand side of the painting are at odds with one another,” Ruscha said. “The left-hand side was a furious fire going on, and the right-hand side almost put you to sleep.”

This exhibition comes at a pivotal moment for LACMA, having recently demolished the William Pereira-designed buildings featured in the painting for its construction of the new David Geffen Galleries under the architectural leadership of Peter Zumthor. As such, Ruscha’s painting has new layers of resonance: Does the fire speak toward the inevitable demise of such a building?

Maybe more importantly, the painting also seems to participate in Ruscha’s predilection for the pun. If the left-hand side of the painting is what captures the artist’s interest, perhaps it’s a good thing for the museum building to be “on fire!” As LACMA continues to carve out its new place in the art world of Los Angeles, it will do well to continue tuning into the pioneering vision of Ruscha — an artist whose work speaks life into anything it engages.

“ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN” will be on view until Oct. 6. Students can receive an admission discount with the presentation of a valid ID.