Ed Ruscha’s The Old Tech-Chem Building: a dehumanised landscape — theguardian.com

This 2003 airbrushed canvas comes from Course of Empire, two series of paintings by Ed Ruscha, the master of landscapes reduced to cool, sharp graphics, word painting and sly social commentary. The first black-and-white “Blue Collar” works from 1992 depict Los Angeles’s low-rise industrial buildings. The “Tech-Chem” paintings revisit these sites, 11 years on, in colour. With the simplest means, Ruscha creates an epic saga of civilisation in a tailspin.

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