Ed Ruscha: Course of Empire - National Gallery

Ed Ruscha, The Old Trade School Building, 2005

Ed Ruscha: Course of Empire is at the National Gallery until 7 October 2018
From the National Gallery website:
See Ed Ruscha's modern take on the cyclical nature of civilisation, evocative of Thomas Cole's series of the same name. [See blog entry here]
Ed Ruscha (1937–) has shaped the way we see the American landscape over the span of his influential six-decade career. Elegant, highly distilled, and often humorous, Ruscha’s work conveys a unique brand of visual American zen.
In 2005, Ruscha was asked to represent the United States at the 51st Venice Biennale. Dealing with the theme of "progress, or the course of progress," Ruscha's Biennale installation evoked Thomas Cole's famous painting cycle of 1833–36, 'The Course of Empire', concurrently on display in the Ground Floor Galleries.
Unlike Cole’s grandiose vision of the rise and fall of a classical civilisation, Ruscha’s ‘Course of Empire’ focuses on the industrial buildings of Los Angeles – simple, box-like, utilitarian structures with no pretension to beauty but redolent of economic might and global reach.
Reviews and features
Waldemar Januszczak (blog/Sunday Times)
Tim Jonze, Ed Ruscha: I've done things that felt kissed by angels (The Guardian)
Jonathan Jones, Make America Decay Again (The Guardian)

Ed Ruscha, Blue Collar Trade School, 1992

Ed Ruscha, Blue Collar Tech-Chem, 1992

Ed Ruscha, The Old Tech-Chem Building, 2003

Ed Ruscha, Blue Collar Tool & Die, 1992

Ed Ruscha, The Old Tool & Die Building, 2004

Ed Ruscha, Blue Collar Telephone, 1992

Ed Ruscha, Site of a Former Telephone Booth, 2005

Ed Ruscha, Blue Collar Tires, 1992

Ed Ruscha, Expansion of the Old Tires Building, 2005