“Something Else”: Ed Ruscha's Photographic Books

Abstract

My books were very hot items-it was hot art to me, almost too hot to handle. I liked the idea that my books would disorient, and it seemed to happen that people would look at them and the books would look very familiar, yet they were like a wolf in sheep's clothing. I felt they were very powerful statements, maybe the most powerful things I've done. I'm kind of considered part of the mainstream of art history now. My work is not revolutionary, but the works that I did were, at that point, a can opener that got into something else. My books were art objects to me, but a lot of people chose not to even accept them, and for this reason they have always been underground-and still are.1