Ed Ruscha is an American artist associated with the pop art movement. He has worked in the media of painting, printmaking, drawing, photography and film.
His photography book 'Every Building On The Sunset Strip' is a 54 page (folded) book with black and white photographic illustrations, accordion fold with an original slipcase, measuring 18.0 x 14.2 cm book closed and 18.0 x 750.0 cm open, pages extended. The book documents each building on the infamous 'strip' in presenting it as a continuous paper facade.
Ideas which can be taken from this photography book to think about in my own regard format and production. It can be seen in the format and production of this book that this has been done so in context of the subject of the book, utilising the idea of the sunset 'strip' to create a foldable and extendable book which shows a continuation of everything on the strip. The context of the photography featured within the book I am creating will therefore be taken into account and used to help inform the format of the book itself like this book shows.
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/edward-ruscha-1882
https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/429.2008.a-bbb/
Ed Ruscha, 'Twentysix Gasoline Stations' (1963)
The majority of Ruscha's books, including 'Twentysix Gasolne Stations' reflect his visual engagement with the banal spectacle of Los Angeles, a city he described as "the ultimate card-board cut out town". The flatness of the pages directs our eyes to consider the graphic qualities of his subject, the busy yet blank facades of the Los Angeles environment.
'Twentysix Gasoline Stations' is a modest publication consisting of black and white photographs of petrol stations along the highway between Ruscha's home in Los Angeles and his parent's house in Oklahoma City. Clive Phillpot, writer, curator and former director of the Library at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, observes that the photographs are not reproduced in a linear sequence, with five photographs out of order. Taken from the highway and often including large areas of forecourt or road, the shots appear to be simply factual records of petrol stations. Each opening of the book reveals one or two photographs in varying but repeated layouts, with the photographs set in relatively large areas of white space.
Ideas which can be taken from this photography book to think about in my own regards the layout of the book. Within this example, lots of negative space has been used surrounding the photographs, keeping these layouts minimalistic with simply a caption underneath each photograph in order to reflect Ruscha's view of Los Angeles through the layout. The same has been done in terms of colour schemes, with the photographs being black and white, and keeping a white background as part of the visual engagement of the book. In addition, the book also uses varying but repeated layouts, which should also be considered in the production of my own photography book to show an element of consistency throughout the layout of the book whilst not being completely the same on every page as so to, again, keep the engagement of the reader.
https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/429.2008.a-bbb/
https://www.tate.org.uk/about-us/projects/transforming-artist-books/summaries/edward-ruscha-twentysix-gasoline-stations-1963
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