Ruscha, Ed. Every building on the Sunset Strip - 1966 CONCEPT-ART CALIFORNIA USA

Ruscha, Ed(ward). Every building on the Sunset Strip. Los Angeles, Selbstverlag (1966). 8°. Leporello, [53] Bl. mit zahlr. Abb. (17,8 x 714 cm.). OKart. in silberfarb. Orig.-Pappschuber.

Auer 463. Dickel 11 ff. Parr/Badger II, 142 f. Roth, The Book of 101 Books 182 f. – Erste Ausgabe; eines von 1000 Exemplare. 1971 erschien eine nicht gekennzeichnete Neuausgabe (5000 Exemplare), erkennbar an dem bis an den Bildrand beschnittenen letzten Blatt. – „Bei einer Autofahrt entlang des Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles hatte Ed Ruscha alle Gebäude der Hausnummern 8024-9176 bzw. 8101-9171 photographiert. Die Bilder von der Südseite des so genannten „Sunset Strip“; erscheinen in Ruschas Leporello an der oberen Kante, von Ost nach West, vom Sunset Boulevard 8024 (Schwab’s Pharmacy) bis zur Hausnummer 9176 (einem Jaguar-Schauladen), die Bilder von der Nordseite gegenüber an der unteren Kante, von der Chevron Tankstelle (8101) bis Hausnummer 9171 vor einer Straßenkreuzung.’ Für die typographische Gestaltung der Titelseite verwendete er wiederum eine serifenbetonte Linearantiqua. Der Silberglanz der Spiegelfolie des Schubers erscheint auch in Andy Warhols Index Book (1967)“ (Hans Dickel). – „Every Building on the Sunset Strip, the fourth of sixteen selfdesigned and primarily self-published artist’s books Ed Ruscha published between 1963 and 1978, is, like many of the others (Twentysix Gasoline Stations, Thirtyfour Parking Lots in Los Angeles, Nine Swimming Pools and a Broken Glass, Records), a compendium neatly defined by its title. Like nearly all of those other books, Sunset Strip is also quite compact-no bigger than the average religious pamphlet – and its silver mylar-covered slipcase makes it seem even more so. … Made with a motorized Nikon mounted to the back of a pickup truck, the Sunset Strip photos resemble nothing so much as real-estate ads (a late book in this vein was titled Real Estate Opportunities), they’re butted up against one another with no attempt to disguise their seams or discontinuity. The effect is less like the fluid cinematic pan that one critic suggests than a series of jolting jump cuts. The book’s subject matter- a ragged progression of gas stations, motels, apartment houses, parking lots, strip malls, and honky-tonk signage and itss imple typography are consistent with the imagery and the typefaces in the Ruscha paintings that helped define Pop art for the masses. But, perhaps because they straddle documentary and conceptual photo work so effortlessly, perhaps because they make his deadpan wit even more accessible, Ruscha’s books and the photos in them have had a greater influence on Younger artists and photographers than his paintings. Like so many contemporary artists, Ruscha makes photographs without considering himself a photographer.“ I wanted to make a book,“ he told curator and critic Walter Hopps. „and I let photography be a secondary medium, an excuse to make a book. That’s what I wanted to do most of all, really to make a book, not necessarily take photographs“.“ (Vince Aletti in Roth). – Umschlag etwas fingerfleckig, Rücken mit Knickspur, gutes Exemplar.