by Jon Lackman | 16 May 2006 | Contemporary
In the catalogue to the exhibition Ed Ruscha: Photographer, Margit Rowell writes “Ruscha has always claimed to be a painter who made photographs … ‘what I was after was no-style or a non-statement with a no-style.’ Observations like these imply that Ruscha’s primary aim was to make nonaesthetic documentary photographs. Yet the work and its reception suggest more subtle motives. It begs the questions, what is the relationship between Ruscha’s photography and his ambitions as a painter, and why did the photographs have an impact on other artists?”
