Rachel Libeskind
End of Icons, 2021
UV coated deck of playing cards, 52 individual cards, with 2 joker cards and 1 signature card
3.5x2.5 inches
Edition of 50

On the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of the fall of the World Trade Center in New York, artist Rachel Libeskind has created a suite of 100-flocked paintings and a special edition playing card deck. This body of work entitled End of Icons represents the contemplation of contemporary culture’s attachment to images and their perceived and sometimes altered meanings. More specifically End of Icons deliberates on the rise propagandized and wide commercial use of images of the Twin Towers between their openings in 1973 as a stamp of the American Dream, epicenter of American capitalism and what makes New York; to their fall in 2001 and the subsequent years after as a visual metaphor for loss of life and a token catalyst for war, anti Muslim rhetoric and the American campaign of the “War on Terror”.

The End of Icons playing card deck is the first edition of it’s kind for Libeskind, where she has created an object that could otherwise be considered a kitsch tourist souvenir of New York. Libeskind has taken a selection of 55 images from the suite of 100 flocked paintings and transposed them into a playing card deck edition wit 52 cards, two jokers, and one signed and numbered signature card.