“The businessman bought at ten and was happy to get out at twelve; the mathematician saw his ten rise to eighteen, but didn’t sell because he wanted to double his ten to twenty.”

Here the phrase ‘The End’, in a black gothic-style typeface, occupies the centre of the picture like it would in the final frame of an old Hollywood movie. The format of the canvas echoes the proportions of a cinema screen. This association is reinforced by the grey background and thin vertical streaks that suggest marks on old film stock. However, long, thin, pale yellow grasses sprout from an invisible ground in front of the words, obscuring them from view. The Final End demonstrates Ruscha’s interest in the histories of visual culture and graphic design. The work and its title may express sadness about the passing away of certain beloved aspects of popular culture.

The visual appearance of this work is in tension with the meaning and associations of its title. Black and blue paint, applied with a spray gun, seems to be in the process of obliterating the word ‘HOPE’. The effect of the paint particles across the paper surface is reminiscent of dirt on a vehicle or even blood spatter from a gunshot wound. HOPE’s large-scale and horizontal format relate it to advertising billboards, a longstanding visual interest of Ruscha’s.

Gaddafi 3 depicts the body of the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed by rebels on 20 October 2011, lying on a mattress surrounded by a group of rebel fighters. Gaddafi 3 is the third in a group of three paintings based on digital images of the violent death of Gaddafi, the others being Gaddafi 1 2011 (Tate T14241) and Gaddafi 2 2011 (Tate T14240). The scale of this canvas, the largest of the three, establishes a direct physical relationship between the viewer and the fighters depicted within it, both engaged in focusing on the lifeless body. The flat application of oil paint, unusual fleshy palette and use of grey-scale with a preponderance of saturated black, are all typical of Sasnal’s practice. The dramatically foreshortened figure of Gaddafi also recalls Andrea Mantegna’s painting Lamentation of Christ c.1480 (Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan).

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But, he said, Russia was going to be a different kind of superpower, one that does not engage in “pressure, in- timidation and blackmail” to “exploit” sovereign African governments.

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