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Ed Ruscha
May Company, 6150 Laurel Canyon, North Hollywood, from the series Parking Lots, 1967; printed 1999

Artwork Info

Artwork title
May Company, 6150 Laurel Canyon, North Hollywood, from the series Parking Lots
Artist name
Ed Ruscha
Date created
1967; printed 1999
Classification
photograph
Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
15 × 15 in. (38.1 × 38.1 cm)
Credit
Collection of the Sack Photographic Trust
Copyright
© Ed Ruscha
Permanent URL
https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/ST2010.051
Artwork status
Not on view at this time.

Audio Stories

Why document Los Angeles’s most mundane architecture?

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ERIN OTOOLE: Ed Ruscha never considered himself a photographer, but a lot of people consider him one of the most important photographers, because he inspired so many who came after him 

 

NARRATOR: Curator Erin OToole.  

 

OTOOLE: He repurposed photographs that he found, advertising photographs or magazine photographs, or photographs made for corporations or other sort of commercial purposes. 

 

NARRATOR: An example is Ruschas 1967 book Thirtyfour Parking Lots in Los Angeles. In it, the artist hired a commercial photographer to snap images of LAs most mundane landmarks. Projects like this questioned preconceived ideas about what makes a subject worthy or interesting. 

 

OTOOLE: And basically, he used them to challenge conventional notions of “What is art?” Is art something thats made by the artist himself? Or is an artist somebody who has an idea and takes images from other places and assembles them and creates something new? 

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