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Above all, the photographs I use are not “arty” in any sense of the word. I think photography is dead as a fine art; its only place is in the commercial world, for technical or information purposes. I don’t mean cinema photography, but still photography, that is, limited edition, individual, hand-processed photos. Mine are simply reproductions of photos.¹

The prescience of Edward Ruscha’s 1965 comments on “arty” photography notwithstanding, the use of photographs in making art has become standard practice internationally in the thirty years since publication of his first book, Twentysix Gasoline Stations, 1962. Ruscha’s attitudes and their widespread dissemination via over fifty thousand copies of his various books had a lot to do with effecting that change, for they pointed the way to a new examination of photography’s cultural function.

Ruscha recently commented, “Unfortunately, there was no Jackson Pollock of the camera.” If the analogy is to an artist who demanded that his audience learn a new pictorial language, Ruscha himself may qualify.

1. Edward Ruscha quoted in John Coplans, “Concerning ‘Various Small Fires’: Edward Ruscha Discusses His Perplexing Publications,” Artforum 3, no. 5 (February 1965): 25. ↩︎