The End 1997

Edward Ruscha made this artwork of uncertain date with paint on paper. The traditional materials belie an engagement with mass media. The words "The End" in red block letters, are painted on a mottled grey field, with the kind of scratches you'd see at the conclusion of an old film reel. Ruscha is known for using commercial art techniques, but here the sense of mechanical reproduction is an illusion. It is all paint, carefully applied. The artist has painstakingly simulated the look of aging celluloid. Consider the amount of labor involved in such a detailed exercise in trompe l'oeil. Ruscha acknowledges not just the final product of film, but also the means of its production, and inevitable obsolescence. By bringing those processes into the realm of painting, Ruscha asks us to consider the value of skilled handiwork in an age of mechanical reproduction. It is this tension between the hand-made and the mass-produced that gives the work its lasting appeal.