It’s Payback Time (Country Cityscapes series)
- Artist: Edward Ruscha
- Date: 2001
- Medium: Photogravure with silkscreened text
- Dimensions: unconfirmed: 457 x 356 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the “It’s Payback Time (Country Cityscapes series)” by Edward Ruscha. It was made in 2001 as a photogravure, with silkscreened text added after the print. What you’re looking at is a North American landscape – a plain, a ridge, a dusty road – that Ruscha has covered with blocks of black text. The words come from old‑west movie titles like “Be Careful…You Hear Me?” or “Its Payback Time.” By turning those catchy slogans into ominous, blanked‑out threats, he disrupts the calm of the scenery. The piece plays with advertising tropes, using the blanked text as a kind of interruption, a warning that’s meant to catch you off guard. The result is a striking visual joke and a subtle critique of how we see, read, and sometimes ignore the landscapes around us.
See it in person
It’s Payback Time (Country Cityscapes series) is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
