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RUSCHA Edward (Omaha, Nebraska 1937)
[Los Angeles], Edward Ruscha, 1966, 18,5x14,5 cm., softcover, cardboard case covered with silver glossy paper white cardboard cover with title printed in silver on the front cover and spine of the book. Leporello folded in 54 pages entirely illustrated with two parallel strips of black and white photographic images for a total length of m. 7.38. Edition of 1.000 copies. First edition in the second printing
Bibliography: Siri Engberg - Clive Phillpot, "Edward Ruscha: Editions 1959-1999. Catalogue Raisonne", Minneapolis-New York, Walker Art Center, 1999: volume II, pp. 84-89; Roth 2004: pp. 198-199; Parr - Badger 2006: volume II, pp. 142-143; Roth - Aaron - Lehmann 2017: pp. 252-253
"«The Every Building on the Sunset Strip» is the great exception within Ed Ruscha's photobook bibliography, and an important one. It was the fourth of artist's books that he published, and expanded on the standard format of the seminal «Twentysix Gasoline Stations» and its successors in two ways. Firstly, Ruscha took one specific location - the part of Sunset Boulevard that runs between Hollywood and Beverly Hills in California, The «Susnet Strip» - and photographed it in its entirety. He shot every building on both sides of the boulevard between Crescent Heights Boulevard to the east and Doheny Drive to the west, printed them and joined them together to make two long panorams, one for the northern side, the other for the southern. Each panorama was incorporated into the book in one long accordion fold, the factor that makes it not only the most phisically ambitous of Ruscha's books, but also the most flamboyant. Nevertheless, although the book draws attention to itself by virtue of its form, it retains the deadpan photographic style that distinguishes all Rusha's photobooks. Another important feature of «Every Building on the Sunset Strip» is the question ot its documentary value. It is a valuable record of the Strip at a particular point during the early 1960s, and while it would have been of great use to a realtor at the time, it now has a certain historical as well as artistic value. The book has also been subject of study by American architects, most notably Robert Venturi, who regards "strip" architecture as a quintessential American urban form" (Martin Parr - Gerry Badger).
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