After Ed-Werd Rew-Shay

This book documents my research at the MoMA Library looking at, among other things, Edward Ruscha's artist's books. Through writing, thumbnail sketches and photographs, I explain how I accidentally became obsessed with Ruscha's Twenty-six Gasoline Stations, a photobook that follows Route 66 between Oklahoma and Los Angeles. In response to Ruscha's book, I created the photo series Twenty-six Views from the 7 Train, which follows the train route between the MoMA QNS Library where I was visiting Ruscha's book and my (temporary) NYC apartment. Ruscha’s book documents gas stations – markers along a lengthy and often monotonous stretch of road. Although some shots appear to be taken at speed, for the most part the stations are stops on a familiar journey; this was a road Ruscha travelled frequently between his hometown Oklahoma and his adopted home of LA. My photographs capture whatever was outside when I had a clear shot of the train window, which was infrequent, especially in peak hours. Unlike Ruscha, the landscape is unfamiliar to me, even after three return trips (plus additional trips on the same train line to visit friends in Queens). The book belongs to a substantial collection of existing Ruscha-homage books, documented particularly well in the 2013 publication Various Small Books: Referencing Various Small Books by Ed Ruscha and travelling exhibition Ed Ruscha Books & Co. For me, creating the book was a way of thinking through the parallels between how Ruscha and others were using newly inexpensive offset printing to ‘democratise’ their work in the 1960–70s and how artists are using print-on-demand technology today.