''Twentysix Gasoline Stations'' is the first
artist's book by the American
pop
Pop or POP may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* Pop music, a musical genre Artists
* POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade
* Pop!, a UK pop group
* Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band
Albums
* ''Pop'' (G ...
artist
Ed Ruscha. Published in April 1963
[Edward Ruscha Editions, Engberg, Phillpot, Walker Art Center, 1999] on his own imprint National Excelsior Press,
[Edward Ruscha Editions, Engberg, Phillpot, Walker Art Center, 1999 Vol2 p60] it is often considered to be the first modern artist's book,
[The Century of Artist's Books, Drucker, Granary, 2004 p11] and has become famous as a precursor and a major influence on the emerging artist's book culture, especially in America. The book delivers exactly what its title promises, reproducing 26 photographs of gasoline stations next to captions indicating their brand and location. From the first service station, 'Bob's Service' in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
where Ruscha lived, the book follows a journey back to
Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, a ...
where he had grown up and where his mother still lived. The last image is of a
Fina gasoline station in
Groom
A bridegroom (often shortened to groom) is a man who is about to be married or who is newlywed.
When marrying, the bridegroom's future spouse (if female) is usually referred to as the bride. A bridegroom is typically attended by a best man an ...
,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
, which Ruscha has suggested should be seen as the beginning of the return journey, 'like a coda'.
Originally printed in a numbered edition of 400, a second edition of 500 was published in 1967 and a third of 3000 in 1969. Neither of these later editions was numbered. It has been suggested that these reprints were a deliberate attempt to flood the market in order to maintain the book's status as a cheap, mass-produced commodity. The book originally sold for $3.50.
Of the work,
Johanna Drucker said:
Ruscha's books combined the literalness of early California pop art with a flat-footed photographic aesthetic informed by minimalist notions of repetitive sequence and seriality....Thirty years later, with a quarter of a century of mainstream artworld activity between, the aspect of shock-effect and humor has diminished somewhat. But in 1962 (sic) this work read against the photographic landscape of highly aestheticized image-making.
Origins of ''Twentysix Gasoline Stations''
Ruscha would drive home to visit his parents in Oklahoma four or five times a year after leaving home at 18; many of the journeys were taken with his friend and fellow artist
Mason Williams. Ruscha has said:
I wasn't coming out here aliforniato do anything in particular, or to be anything in particular except...except out of Oklahoma...a long way from Oklahoma, that's what I wanted to be, and everything it stood for. And away from the Catholic Church too, and Sister Daniella who beat my knuckles with a pencil the one year I was in parochial school.
Ruscha had visited Europe in 1961, and been particularly taken by the books he saw for sale "on the street, in those little bookstalls," and been impressed by the "non-commercial look... a strange kind of sober design including the typography and the binding and everything." Back in Los Angeles, he conceived the idea initially as a play on words, deciding upon the title first, then working on the typography and design before taking the photographs.
[Interview with Ed Ruscha, Artforum, Feb 1965, reprinted in ''Leave Any Information at the Signal'', Schwartz, October Books, 2002, p24-25] He took about 60 photographs, and edited them down to 26 by removing any that he felt were too interesting.
The Book
Dated 1962 in the foreword and dedicated to Patty Callahan, the book comprises twenty-six photographs of various dimensions and proportions; most are laid out on a single page with the text facing the image; some go across the double spread, a few are placed next to each other. Three images are taken at night, including one of
Tucumcari, New Mexico
Tucumcari (; ) is a city in and the county seat of Quay County, New Mexico, Quay County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 5,278 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. Tucumcari was founded in 1901, two years before Quay Count ...
, that appears to have been taken from a moving car. But for three people walking across the forecourt on the
Sunset Strip
The Sunset Strip is the stretch of Sunset Boulevard that passes through the city of West Hollywood, California. It extends from West Hollywood's eastern border with the city of Los Angeles near Marmont Lane to its western border with Beverly H ...
, a man getting out of his car at
Flagstaff, Arizona
Flagstaff ( ) is a city in, and the county seat of, Coconino County, Arizona, Coconino County in northern Arizona, in the southwestern United States. In 2019, the city's estimated population was 75,038. Flagstaff's combined metropolitan area has ...
and a man looking under his hood at
Lupton,
Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
, there are no people present. There are no cars visible in some of the photographs and almost all are taken from the other side of the highway.
All of the gasoline stations are on
Route 66
U.S. Route 66 or U.S. Highway 66 (US 66 or Route 66) was one of the original highways in the United States Numbered Highway System. It was established on November 11, 1926, with road signs erected the following year. The h ...
, a road that had already been mythologized by the TV series
''Route 66'' and in
Steinbeck's ''
The Grapes of Wrath
''The Grapes of Wrath'' is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award
and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize ...
'', and later reappeared as a motif in
Dennis Hopper's ''
Easy Rider''.
The order that the stations appear is almost the same as their position on the route west-east, with five stations moved out of order. With the exception of the last station in Groom, Texas, the relevant states listed are all in order.
The first edition was numbered and occasionally signed, which Ruscha later admitted was a "mistake".
Apart from this detail, the books are defined by their "professional polish, a clear-cut machine finish."
Ruscha has said:
I have eliminated all text from my books- I want absolutely neutral material. My pictures are not that interesting, nor the subject matter. They are simply a collection of 'facts', my book is more like a collection of readymades.....It is almost worth the money to have the thrill of 400 exactly identical books stacked in front of you.
Later, in an interview in the ''
National Observer'', Ruscha declared "I want to be the
Henry Ford
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that mi ...
of book making."
The book is printed in black offset on white paper. It measures 17.9 x 14 x 0.5 cm (closed). It has 26 photographs on 48 pages. The title appears in red lettering on the cover and spine. First edition: 400 numbered copies; second edition, 1967: 500 copies, third edition, 1969: 3000 copies.
The book is covered with a semi-transparent
glassine dust jacket for protection. About fifty copies of the first edition came in a black cardboard slipcase. Apart from this, the numbering on the last page of the first edition and the details of each edition at the beginning of the book, the three are indistinguishable.
Possible meanings
A lot of critics have assigned a religious sub-text to the work, seeing a correlation between the gasoline stations and the 14
Stations of the Cross
The Stations of the Cross or the Way of the Cross, also known as the Way of Sorrows or the Via Crucis, refers to a series of images depicting Jesus Christ on the day of Crucifixion of Jesus, his crucifixion and accompanying prayers. The station ...
, traditionally the staging posts between
Pilate's condemnation and the burial of
Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, names and titles), was ...
after his
crucifixion
Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the victim is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross or beam and left to hang until eventual death from exhaustion and asphyxiation. It was used as a punishment by the Persians, Carthagin ...
on
Calvary
Calvary ( la, Calvariae or ) or Golgotha ( grc-gre, Γολγοθᾶ, ''Golgothâ'') was a site immediately outside Jerusalem's walls where Jesus was said to have been crucified according to the canonical Gospels. Since at least the early mediev ...
. Ruscha, a lapsed Catholic, has gone some way to supporting this view in interviews:
There is a connection between my work and my experience with religious icons, and the stations of the cross and the Church generally, but it's in one of method, you know; I do have some flavors that come over, like the incense... we all go through stages... the attitude comes out of a whole style of living and then coming up with statements.
The book has also been cited as an artist's book equivalent of a road movie,
[''I Dont Want No Retro Spective'', Hickey & Plagens, Hudson Hills Press, 1982, foreword.] and as a pop version of
Walker Evans
Walker Evans (November 3, 1903 – April 10, 1975) was an American photographer and photojournalist best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) documenting the effects of the Great Depression. Much of Evans' work from ...
' photographs of America, such as his deserted gasoline station in 'Highway Corner Reedsville West Virginia, 1935'. Although Ruscha has admitted knowledge of Evans' work, he has dismissed it as an influence. The last image, of a Fina station, has been interpreted as a
Duchampian pun on ''Fin'' (end).
Reception
Originally, the book was received poorly; despite being published the same year as Ruscha's first exhibition at the
Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles-which also represented
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
- the book was rejected by the Library of Congress for its 'unorthodox form and supposed lack of information'. The book gradually acquired cult status through the 1960s, and by the 1980s was often hailed as the first modern artist's book
although in fact
Dieter Roth's artist's books share the same mass-produced aesthetic and investigate the nature of books with at least as much formal vigour, and predate Ruscha's first publication by seven years.
Additionally,
Warja Lavater's first book, ''William Tell'' (New York: Junior Council,
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
, 1962 (OCLC ), an accordion folded book written using symbols only, preceded Ruscha's ''Twentysix Gasoline Stations''.
Copies of the book are kept in public collections across the world, including
MOMA
Moma may refer to:
People
* Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist
* Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician
* Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher
Places
; Ang ...
,
V&A,
Tate
Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...
, and the
National Gallery of Australia.
Sources
* ''Twentysix Gasoline Stations'', Ed Ruscha, Third Edition, Cunningham Press Alhambra, California, 1969
* I Dont Want No Retro Spective, Hickey & Plagens, Hudson Hills Press 1982
Cara Marsh Sheffler, The Late Edition: Twenty Years of Dissemination at Printed Matter (2005) essay reproduced on Printed Matter WebsiteArtforum Jan 1997, essay by Dave Hickey, reproduced at BNet UK* Edward Ruscha Editions, Engberg, Phillpot, Walker Art Center, 1999
* ''Leave Any Information at the Signal'', Schwartz, October Books, 2002
* Ed Ruscha, R Marshall, Phaidon 2003
* The Century of Artist's Books, Joanna Drucker, Granary, 2004
''TWENTYSIX GASOLINE STATIONS'', Michalis Pichler, Second Edition, Printed Matter, Inc., NY, 2011
References
External links
Interview by Richard Prince with RuschaInterview with RuschaInterview, discussing ''Twentysix Gasoline Stations'' specifically
{{Artists' books
Pop art
Artists' books
Conceptual art
Books of photographs
1963 books