Twentysix Gasoline Stations

Twentysix Gasoline Stations
Author	Ed Ruscha
Country	USA
Language	English
Genre	Artists' books
Publisher	National Excelsior Press
Publication date	1963
Media type	Book
Pages	48
OCLC	20409845

Twentysix Gasoline Stations is the first artist's book by the American pop artist Ed Ruscha. Published in April 1963^[1] on his own imprint National Excelsior Press,^[2] it is often considered to be the first modern Artist's book,^[3] and has become famous as a precursor and a major influence on the emerging artist's book culture, especially in America.^[4] The book does exactly what its title suggests, 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 where Ruscha lived, the book follows a journey back to Oklahoma City where the artist had grown up, and where his mother still resided. The last image is of a Fina Gasoline Station in Groom, Texas, which Ruscha has suggested should be seen as the beginning of the return journey, 'like a coda'.^[5]

Originally printed in a numbered edition of 400, a second edition of 500 was published in 1967 and a third of 3000 in 1969.^[6] 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.^[7] The book originally sold for $3.50.^[2] 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."^[8]

Origins of Twentysix Gasoline Stations

Ruscha would drive home to visit his parents in Oklahoma four or five times a year^[9] after leaving home at 18; many of the journeys were taken with his friend and fellow artist Joe Goode.

"I wasn't coming out here [California] to 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." Ed Ruscha^[10]

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.'^[11] 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.^[12] He took about 60 photographs, and edited them down to 26 by removing any that he felt were too interesting.

The Book

Union, Needles, California, one of the double-page spreads in 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, that appears to have been taken from a moving car. But for three people walking across the forecourt on the Sunset Strip, a man getting out of his car at Flagstaff, Arizona and a man looking under his hood at Lipton, Arizona, there are no people present. There are no cars visible in some of the photos. Almost all of the photos are taken from the other side of the highway.

All of the gasoline stations are on Route 66, a road that had already been mythologized by the TV series Route 66 and in Steinbeck's The Grapes Of Wrath, and later reappeared as a motif in Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider.^[1] 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.^[13][14] 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'.^[12] Apart from this detail, the books are defined by their 'professional polish, a clear-cut machine finish.'^[12]

"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." Ed Ruscha^[12]

Later, in an interview in the National Observer, Ruscha declared;

"I want to be the Henry Ford of book making."^[15]

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, and the numbering on the last page of the first edition, each of the three editions is basically identical; but for 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, traditionally the staging posts between Pilate's condemnation and the burial of Christ after His crucifixion on Calvary.^[16][17] 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.^[18]

The book has also been cited as an artist's book equivalent of a road movie,^[19] and as a pop version of Walker Evans' photos 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.)^[20] The last image, of a Fina station, has been interpreted as a Duchampian pun on Fin (end).^[19]

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- the book was rejected by the Library of Congress for its 'unorthodox form and supposed lack of information'.^[21] The book gradually acquired cult status through the sixties, and by the eighties was often being hailed as the first modern artist's book^[3] 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 7 years.^[3] Additionally, Warja Lavater's first book, William Tell (New York : Junior Council, Museum of Modern Art, 1962 (OCLC 10911288), an accordion folded book written using symbols only, preceded Ruscha's Twentysix Gasoline Stations.

An original signed copy of Twentysix Gasoline Stations is now worth up to $35,000.^[22][23]

Copies are kept in public collections across the world, including MOMA, V&A, Tate, and the National Gallery of Australia.

50 Years Later

OU Group with Ed Ruscha

Road to Ruscha was a collaborative, multidisciplinary, conceptual art project inspired by Ed Ruscha’s painting, No Man’s Land, and the 50th anniversary of his landmark book, Twentysix Gasoline Stations. The central element of the project was a road trip from Oklahoma City to Los Angeles, following in reverse order Ruscha’s original trips of 1962. After arriving in Los Angeles, the group met Ed Ruscha at his studio. Primary participants included 20 students and faculty from the University of Oklahoma representing diverse fields of study such as art, art history, environmental sustainability, and geography.

Along the journey, participants engaged in a variety of collaborative projects and site visits derived from the original 26 gasoline stations pictured in Ruscha’s book. The project existed in both physical and virtual space with real-time collaboration between those "on the road" and visitors to the project’s website. Museum visitors could track participants' progress on the journey inside the museum's Sandy Bell Gallery. Media and technology were used to facilitate this collaboration and emphasize the nature of contemporary experiences of land, place, and culture. The 3,000-mile road trip took place over 10 days in May 2013. The students' journey and multimedia responses have been archived on the project’s website.

Road to Ruscha was sponsored by the Kirkpatrick Foundation, the OU College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences, the OU School of Art and Art History, and the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art.

References

• TWENTYSIX GASOLINE STATIONS , JEFFERY MORGER , FIRST EDITION OF 300 , JEFF MORGER PRESS 2013 , ISBN 978-3-033-03997-1 . WWW.BUCHHANDEL.DE
• 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 Website
• Artforum 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

Notes

TWENTYSIX GASOLINE STATIONS BY JEFFERY MORGER 2013, JMP , Edition of 300 How to order : www. Buchhandel.de ISBN 978-3-033-03997-1

External links

• An interview by Richard Prince with Ruscha
• Another interview with Ruscha
• Another interview, discussing Twentysix Gasoline Stations specifically