2017, Ed Ruscha, Our Flag -- Los Angeles County Museum of Art (special collection)
From the museum label: Ruscha depicts the American flag in tatters, meticulously rendering each wild, fluttering scrap. Produced one year into Donald Trump's presidential term, it suggests the artist's feelings about the state of the country. "I don't try to have my work be instructional," Ruscha recently noted. "They're pictures, and they don't have to have true meanings, especially political meanings, but this one was a little different." With its large, panoramic format, the work recalls earlier paintings such as Standard Station, Ten-Cent Western Being Torn in Half (1964), also on view. If you scan the composition from left to right, the flag appears to disintegrate in front of your eyes, creating the impression of motion and passing time.
2017, Ed Ruscha, Our Flag -- Los Angeles County Museum of Art (special collection)
From the museum label: Ruscha depicts the American flag in tatters, meticulously rendering each wild, fluttering scrap. Produced one year into Donald Trump's presidential term, it suggests the artist's feelings about the state of the country. "I don't try to have my work be instructional," Ruscha recently noted. "They're pictures, and they don't have to have true meanings, especially political meanings, but this one was a little different." With its large, panoramic format, the work recalls earlier paintings such as Standard Station, Ten-Cent Western Being Torn in Half (1964), also on view. If you scan the composition from left to right, the flag appears to disintegrate in front of your eyes, creating the impression of motion and passing time.