Yes, this is mainly a space for non-professor types, but following the discussions about our art books visit last week, this exhibition review of Ed Ruscha’s legacy in making and depicting books was too good to pass up. Ed Ruscha is one of the granddaddies of American conceptual art (he has his own catalogue of his work online), and one of his big claims to fame is making simple, cheaply produced, almost “dumb” art books, usually involving photography. This was a challenge to the “fine press” approach that dominated the rise of the art books (remember those fancy, large-format books on the first table last week?), and as desktop publishing became widely available for private individuals in the 1980s, this approach to books has stayed widely popular. There’s a lot of sending-up, ripping-off, mashing-up, etc. in this area, maybe even more so than in the “regular” artist’s books we saw last week. This probably makes such books more vulnerable to copyright lawsuits and criminal charges. But let me ask: what is the social value of Ruscha’s style of book? And what in copyright law (check out Goldstein here) might give his kind of work some protection?
Ed Ruscha’s art is definitely an interesting take on (or rebellion against) the typical artist’s book. Ruscha’s work seems to be more accessible to the general public due to the prices and focus of his works. With works such as “Crackers” and “Twentysix Gasoline Stations,” Ruscha makes art out of every day life. In Copyright’s Highway, Paul Goldstein wrote that “All copyright cases have one fact in common: by telling authors how much they may lawfully borrow and how much they must create on their own” (Goldstein 3). Ruscha’s works would be protected under this law, for although his photographs are of objects created by others (gas stations, crackers, etc.), they are combined with other photographs into a single work to create something new. By bringing photographs together, Ruscha creates with earlier works.