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| 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)
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| Ed Ruscha, Blue Collar Trade School, 1992 |
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| Ed Ruscha, Blue Collar Tech-Chem, 1992 |
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| Ed Ruscha, The Old Tech-Chem Building, 2003 |
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| Ed Ruscha, Blue Collar Tool & Die, 1992 |
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| Ed Ruscha, The Old Tool & Die Building, 2004 |
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| Ed Ruscha, Blue Collar Telephone, 1992 |
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| Ed Ruscha, Site of a Former Telephone Booth, 2005 |
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| Ed Ruscha, Blue Collar Tires, 1992 |
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| Ed Ruscha, Expansion of the Old Tires Building, 2005 |
