Ed Ruscha: Photographer

by Margit Rowell, Ed Ruscha

Ed Ruscha's relationship to photography is complex and ambivalent. The world-class painter--and author of a 1972 New York Times article called "'I'm Not Really a Photographer'"--has been known to refer to his work in this second medium as a "hobby," despite considerable, persistent critical interest. Whether he likes it or not, the small albums of plainly-shot, snapshot-sized images he produced in the 1960s and 70s, including Twenty-Six Gasoline Stations, intrigued his contemporaries and earned him an unshakable reputation. How? His subject matter was neither purely documentary nor solely artistic, in fact it was stereotypical and banal, with motifs drawn from the car-dominated western landscape. That rebellious material, along with his serial presentation, made for a mythical road-movie or photo-novel effect with Beat Generation overtones. The combination attracted artists and critics both, especially while serial logic was prominent in Pop art and Minimalism, and then retained that interest later as serial work became prominent in Conceptual art. Critics have remained attentive for decades, and Ruscha's influence remains apparent in new work in Europe and North America. Ed Ruscha, Photographer departs from earlier collections to explore how these images--and all of Ruscha's work in disciplines including painting, drawing, printmaking and photography--are guided and shaped by a single vision.

Genres: Photography, Art

200 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2006

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

some long time ago in some other city, i came across an accordion styled photography book called every building on the sunset strip. it was just that. photographs of every building. stopped in an instant and put in a perfect little book that folded out and out and out and out until you laid the entire strip across your hardwood floor. there was sometihng so perfect about it i left it there and walked around it for days. i would drink coffee and beer around it. and then i folded it up and put it on a leaning shelf where the direct light could not fade it. the simplicity of the thing struck me. and from the moment i unfolded it i began to realize the stopped moments in my life. the curbs and mailboxes. rotary telephones. the way light from a rented window fell across my girlfriends face as she slept. i didnt have a camera. but the photograph of those photographs i didnt take are in my head. documented all neat like ruscha's gasoline stations and buildings on the sunset strip. and this book sat out on a remainder table for $5 and i opened it. and it brought all this and the moments in between then and the opening of this book back to me. i had $7 in wallet and i was happy about that.

[Hsuan]

didn't read the texts

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

The introduction by Margit Rowell is informative and blessedly free of post-structural jargon. It focuses on Ruscha's use of photography as a part of a practice of art that moves in stages. Yet, it also allows for his photographic work, and the books-as-objects that contains it, as an artistic accomplishment in and of itself, as well as a source of inspiration for other artists whose primary medium is photography.

The book, which is mostly a collection of plates from a show at the Whitney, could have been more generous with the size of the images. Many are painfully tiny. Still, it is a better than decent representation of Ruscha's photographic art covering all of his books and many images taken before his method became clear to him.

[Michael Vagnetti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Selections from Ruscha's "no-style" photobooks, with their "uncoded images of uncoded subjects." I find the mid-70's series most compelling (Tropical Fish Series). These pictures will remain strange for some time, weirdly rotating toward an acceptance of the casual abyss of boredom. This has something to do with the non-communion of commonplace objects and rhyming words (pictures of Sweets, Meats, Sheets, for example). Objects are always clashing, can never "rhyme." This ruptures the potential of the "traits" of poetic language, making it seem as gauche as the plastic packaging around a sequence of candy, steak, and bed linens.

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ed Ruscha in my humble opinon is one of the great living artists. He has an incredible eye with intellect to match. I am a big fan of his photography, which is often overlooked. This book only focuses on that aspeact of his art - and it's really wonderful.

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ed Ruscha and Photography by Sylvia Wolf is superior to this book in every way. The Wolf book was produced for the 2004 Whitney exhibit. This book is a smaller knock off created for the exhibit traveling to European museums in 2006 and pales in comparison.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

The size doesnt really fit the material - I'd have preferred a larger version. The content though is quite excellent, unsurprisingly.