Gary Conklin Films - LA Suggested by the Art of Ed Ruscha

suggested by the art of

ED RUSCHA

"The idea of Hollywood has lots of meaning and one to me is this image of something fake up here being held up with sticks… I looked outside my window here and I saw the sign Hollywood and it became a subject matter for me. It only lasted for a while, so the actual remnants of the sign are not even important to me. I don’t even think it should stay. It doesn’t even mean landmark to me. It might as well fall down. That’s more Hollywood, to have it fall down or be removed. But in the end it’s more Hollywood to put it back up."

1981, color; 28 minutes Produced, directed, photographed, and edited by Gary Conklin.

A portrait of Los Angeles insipired by the paintings of Edward Ruscha.

This documentary’s swift pace and brilliant cinematography blend canvas
and camera work until they are indistinguishable. Combining shots of the iconography of L.A., the works they have inspired, and interviews with Ruscha, the film is both a perfect introduction to a contemporary painter who has been acclaimed as "an artist of the vernacular and a poet of the visual," and a stunning tribute to the natural and architectural beauty of the city.

"I’m not as much interested in words as I am in the evocative power of them - rather than their poetic power. The words themselves are made up of little letters, which also are visual, and they all somehow come up into a marriage of the two. There’s little strings of things; little objects have always intrigued me and words are the same way."

"It’s all façade here. That’s what intrigues me about the city of Los Angeles, the façadeness of it all."