Ed Ruscha and Some Los Angeles Apartments

by Virginia Heckert

Los Angeles–based contemporary artist Ed Ruscha is celebrated for his paintings, drawings, prints, and artist’s books, receiving widespread critical acclaim for more than half a century. Capturing the quintessential Los Angeles experience with its balance of the banal and the beautiful, his photobooks of the 1960s—such as Twentysix Gasoline Stations , Every Building on the Sunset Strip , Some Los Angeles Apartments , and Thirtyfour Parking Lots —are known for their deadpan cataloguing of the city’s functional architecture.

This publication features thirty-eight Ruscha plates and an essay that traces the evolution of the artist’s thinking about his photographs initially as the means to the end of his self-published photobooks and eventually as works of art in and of themselves. Virginia Heckert contextualizes Ruscha’s photographs within the history of photographic documentation of vernacular architecture, using examples by such important photographers as Carleton Watkins, Eugène Atget, and Walker Evans, as well as contemporary photographers, many of whom have acknowledged Ruscha as an influence in their own depiction of the built environment.
 

Genres: Art, Photography, Architecture

88 pages, Paperback

First published April 25, 2013

Reviews

[Brandon Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Ruscha's photographs of Los Angeles apartment buildings are as much about the subtle variations in these types of vernacular architecture as they are about the way these buildings are experienced. The inclusion of wide expanses of streets or boulevards, and of cars parked in front of buildings or in carports below, reinforces the reality that Los Angeles is a city that is experienced by automobile.”

[Brett Wooley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the brief history of New Topographic photography in LA as well as the consideration of Ruscha’s work—both as part of and apart from that tradition—that’s on display in this book. I think it makes one raise a lot of questions.

Ruscha’s photographs in Some Los Angeles Apartments are often not the most well-composed, which is all the more striking given how erratic his composition choices throughout the book are. Some seem to be composed intentionally, which is to say they are composed pretty well. Others seem to be a simple and somewhat random drive-by or walk-by view. Most are shot at eye level, one or two from a low-angle. The choices in this, as well as the subject apartments, are fairly erratic and somewhat random. Despite this, the images do work. Trying to figure out why is interesting.

I think much of it has to do with the fact that Ruscha is a master packager of the work and designer. He is quoted in the book as being interested in making books, and his genius is best displayed when considering how he worked these images—many of which are not that interesting when viewed individually—into a beautifully-designed book.

The other thing I would say is that the deeper I went in the plates, the more I got the sense that this is more a book about culture than architecture. Viewing these pictures against modern day apartments, one can have a variety of reactions. Was not the practice of plastering very simply-constructed buildings with all sorts of cliched facades a little (or a lot) ridiculous? Conversely, are not the apartments we see in the modern day often completely soulless?

There is something not a little childish in consideration of the former apartments, which were built up against the very adult world of Los Angeles, but which perhaps were mainly built for new arrivals and young people who were still kids in many ways. I see a lot of innocence and mid century optimism in the Los Angeles apartments of yesteryear. There is an element of make-believe in them. Seeing that makes me happy; I don’t know why. At any rate, I’m glad that Ruscha documented them, and that so many like them still stand in LA today.

[Michael Greer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ed Ruscha's artwork captures the essence of living in Los Angeles.

We've all been to the famous cities: Cairo, Paris, London, Amsterdam, St. Petersburg. What happens when you visit Los Angeles? The smog has cleared, there are many sunny days, and the tourist, camera or iPhone in hand, is free to explore the wide variety of apartment buildings that make up the city where there is no there there.

I must admit that the attempt to make a Grand Park is a pathetic mistake. Only the homeless visit. The Grand Central Market is fun, for about twenty minutes. The real secret of Los Angeles is the apartment complex. Virginia Heckert has assembled a variety of black and white photos of this unique phenomena. Constructed in haste with little vision of the future, Los Angeles is a city bound by the notion of temporality, sun, and ocean breezes.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book at LACMA when I attended the Ruscha Then/Now exhibit. After reading it i really wish i’d seen the show it chronicles at the Getty focused on Ruscha’s photos of Los Angeles apartment buildings. This book is one of many in which Ruscha captures the quintessential Los Angeles experience—this book chronicles the Los Angeles experience by balancing the banal and the beautiful as represented by apartment buildings photographed by Ruscha. It features a number of Ruscha photos and an essay that traces the evolution of the artist's thinking about his photographs initially as the means to the end of his self-published photobooks and eventually as works of art in and of themselves. The author places Ruscha's photographs within the history of photographic documentation of vernacular architecture focused on Los Angeles. highly interesting.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not sure what to think about this book. I get the Los Angeles apartments thing. I lived in one out of college way back--a "garden" apartment if you know the code. No, it wasn't a highlight of life thing.

I also have to say LA isn't my town, never was.

Is the book great photography--no it isn't. If you like the "democratic photography" of people like Stephen Shore, this is a pale companion indeed.

The book is interesting for the midcentury nostalgia, some mildly interesting photos and the story of the history of the work, gallery shows, and 1970s times. Just don't expect the level of midcentury street photography you might get with Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander, or Diane Arbus.

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Stylistically, Ruscha's photographs demonstrate a similar interest in documenting the built environment from the point of view of a dispassionate observer. Vertical elements such as telephone poles or palm trees counterbalance the diagonal swaths of signage or street occupying the lower portion of the picture plane […]. These expanses of street are a distancing device, and cannot be bridged even when Ruscha's shadow penetrates the space […]. We imagine him identifying potential subjects for his books during the course of driving, perhaps making a U–turn to position himself across the street, getting out of the car, and standing in front of the structure for just long enough to focus the image in his viewfinder and make his exposure. Although taken from a pedestrian vantage point, the images more accurately convey the casualness of 'drive–by snapshots,' as the art historian Alexandra Schwartz has described them" (Heckert, pg. #10).

"The inclusion of wide expanses of streets or boulevards, and of cars parked in front of buildings or in carports below, reinforces the reality that Los Angeles is a city that is experienced by automobile. Whether Ruscha plotted his route in advance or happened upon his subjects by chance, whether he was familiar with the neighborhood or exploring new locations expressly for the purpose of finding subjects for his book, is ultimately irrelevant, because his photographic depictions of Los Angeles apartment buildings are simultaneously arbitrary and inconsequential—and at the same time carefully edited and quintessential" (Heckert, pg. #22).