"Seeing things age is a form of beauty."
R eplicating the appearance of traditional film, The End #1-#4 evokes a sense of nostalgia for previous forms of representation while translating them into a medium composed solely by light. In a series of holograms, this master of conceptual art constructs the latest iteration of what had been an enduring leit motiv in his late career: the graphic representation of The End. Portrayed persistently through paintings, prints and drawings in what could be an ironic remark on his later years—this enduring theme reaches its most contemplative stat.mes nt in the present pieces.
© 2022 Edward Ruscha
"I have always operated on a kind of waste-retrieval method … I retrieve and renew things that have been forgotten or wasted."
Drawing out the experience of material decay and decomposition of film through an incorruptible medium, Ruscha ironically isolates the experience of nostalgia and obsolescence. The holograms portray the damaged and scratched surfaces of traditional celluloid, all incorporating the classic filmic words “The End” in a daunting Gothic lettering. However, as holograms, the concept of ‘the end’ has paradoxically ventured into a non-decaying medium capable of avoiding its own finale. What once spoke to the fading of collects ive memory now obtains a digital nature that can withhold any sort of decomposition, showing us that ‘the end’ is a subjective state of being.
