Photo:  Gabriella Radujko; reproduction of content on retired Edward Ruscha business card

There is no School of Edward Ruscha, but if there were, prerequisites would include an embrace of ambiguity and the spirit world–its students paraphrasing quotes such as these from his recent talk with Paul Holdengräber at the New York Public Library on March 6, 2013:

I have a deep need to make a book.

It doesn’t matter what it is about.

The idea for a book comes first.

As book artist, Ruscha challenged his interviewer and the audience.  There was puzzlement among the literati, perhaps, because as book readers, according to  Walter J. Ong, we humans are so literate that it is “difficult for us to conceive of an oral universe of communication or thought except as a variant of a literate universe”.

Ruscha’s practice, an alternate universe, is more rooted in oral communication than literacy and inspired by “a spirit that jumps”.  Think leaping flames.  It is no wonder that Ruscha is fascinated by fire or that he suggests that time for reading Holdengräber’s list of books selected with him in mind might only be possible “in another life”.

Thus was born Twentysix Gasoline Stations, his first artist’s book, published in 1963 in black and white and so named, for what exactly?  “Critics want to know; what is it?” inquires Holdengräber, with emphasis on the “is”, so that it sounds like “tis it?”  “What tis it?” Ruscha, of course, won’t tell what it refers to, only what it doesn’t.  It is not a reference to the 26 letters in the alphabet.  It is not a reference to the 26 rides (each way) hitchhiking to Florida from Oklahoma City and back again.

“There is no agenda with gas stations, says Ruscha.  The title came first and then needed to be carried through.  Art needs to be something that makes your scratch your head.  Ambiguity is a good thing.  Art needs to be wide open”.

“Ed Ruscha Books & Co.”, March 5-April 27, 2013 at Gagosian Gallery, 980 Madison Avenue, New York, NY will coincide with the publication of MIT Press’s Various Small Books: Referencing Small Books by Ed Ruscha (2013) which documents ninety-one of the books inspired by Ruscha’s own, reproducing covers and sample layouts from each, along with a detailed description.

He delivers what one studio visitor described as a “luminous experience” by blending formalistic techniques which distort the subject “beyond recognition” and are indeterminable in advance with elements of a category of occult photography known as supernatural; the Oxford Companion to the Photograph describes supernatural images as those which “more or less show what an observer present during the exposure could have seen” and more important, do not show ‘the invisible’.

Subsequently, two of the images, Reading the email telling me Oscar had died and The sun setting on Riley’s birthday, with Hannah screaming in the background capture the emotionally charged moments selected, but they are not representational. The viewer must create the narrative, and in some ways, according to Farwell, the photograph. The image is beyond recognition even though the camera, minus lens, produced an “aide-mémoire”.

The installation ranks high in mischievousness, hiding what was once in plain sight and then coaxing the viewer to complete the final image.  With no two final results alike, Die Transfer Process will have succeeded in engaging audiences in a creative process using a space no larger than the one found on their cell phones.

What do Richard Nixon, Marilyn Monroe, Brigette Bardot and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor have in common? The answer is jumpology, the scientific art captured by photographer Philippe Halsman, now on view at the Laurence Miller Gallery show “Jump” through May 28, 2010.  It is the first time the series has been exhibited in New York.

In addition to the 101 Life magazine covers to his credit, Latvian-born Halsman boasts a 37 year collaboration with Salvador Dali which is captured in the 1949 Popcorn Nude, one of the show’s most gravity-defying images featuring popcorn, nude model, and baguette in mid-air, Dali himself propelling the explosion of popcorn by kicking a bread warmer.  The innocence and spontaneity of the shot is contraindicated by Halsman’s demand of all of his subjects, namely, JUMP!

Artcards learned that Halsman hired his future wife, Yvonne Halsman, who printed many of the works shown, as an apprentice in an attempt to get rid of the competition, “by hiring them” according to one of Halsman’s daughters, Irene,  who was present at the opening.  Additionally, she noted that Einstein and President Roosevelt’s wife played critical roles in helping Halsman immigrate to the States. 

“Capturing the essence of his subjects’ character” is what Halsman’s daughter  was most intent on highlighting as the significance of her father’s work.  While Halsman indicated that “the jump denotes a lack of ambition and sensuality”, it’s a characterization that is more a reflection of his singular ability to persuade the most conservative of adults to show the camera what inhibition or joy looks like.