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Ruscha, Ed (Artist/Subject); Ruscha, Edward (Full Name); Various Artists & Photographers : Various Small Books: Referencing Small Books By Ed Ruscha

MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2013

ISBN 0262018772

First Edition / First Printing. As New in No Dust Jacket, As Issued. 290 pages. Retrospective collection of Artist Books inspired by Ed Ruscha's Artist Books. One of the most beautiful art photography books of our time. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only by a University Press. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents "Various Small Books: Referencing Small Books by Ed Ruscha". Book-homages to the artist's immensely influential Artist Books. Because it is important to establish the context, the original Artist Books themselves by Ruscha have never been more beautifully reproduced and discussed at length by the editors. Their inspired "copycats" (a better word than the pretentious academic term, "referencing") are shown here, demonstrating that Ruscha's Artist Books remain his most original and valuable work. Compiled and edited by Jeff Brouws and his team, it is the perfect companion volume to MIT Press' "Leave Any Information At The Signal" (2002), Ruscha's Collected Writings. "In the 1960's and 1970's, Ed Ruscha created a series of small photo-conceptual Artist Books. Featuring mundane subjects photographed prosaically, with idiosyncratically deadpan titles, these small books were sought-after, collected, and loved by Ruscha's fans and fellow artists. Over the past thirty years, close to 100 other small books that appropriated or paid homage to Ruscha have appeared throughout the world. Collects 91 of these projects, showcasing the cover and sample layouts from each along with a description of the work" (Publisher's blurb). Through his Artist Books, a stroke of pure genius, Ruscha expanded every contemporary artist's field of permissible subjects, approaches, and methods. It is only fitting that the grateful artists give something back to Ruscha. To their credit, the editors also pay lavish homage to Yoshikazu Suzuki's "Ginza Kaiwai/Ginza Haccho" (1954), which precedes "Every Building On The Sunset Strip" by thirteen years. Suzuki did it first, brilliantly so, and just as important, its precedence does not in any way diminish Ed Ruscha's achievement. An absolute "must-have" title for Ed Ruscha collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black ink-pen on the half-title page, his preferred page for the book, by Ed Ruscha. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a contemporary art classic. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. A rare signed copy thus. Lavishly illustrated with color plates. One of the greatest artists of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER ED RUSCHA TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0262018772.

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