Ed Ruscha: a comprehensive look 5/5

Steidl published, in 2009, a catalogue raisonne of Ed Rusha and this latest three-book box set brings his creativity up to date. All of his work from 1960 to 2022 is revealed with 1944 images in color on 864 pages.

Book one has two worthwhile illustrated essays. Art curator Siri Engberg (she edited a catalogue raisonne of Rusha's work for the Walker Art Center in 1999) writes about the way Rusha explored creativity in relation to his life in Los Angeles. Several of his small books, from the sixties, feature parking lots, apartments, swimming pools, real estate, palm trees et cetera and in larger publications, LA's street commonplace. Rusha's work experience in the Carson/Roberts ad agency inspired him to use the vernacular of commercialism with his print output (hundreds of these are shown in book three).  

Book two is an expanded version of the Siri Engberg's Walker Art Center edition and I particularly like this book because it has every page of twenty-two of Rusha's books plus two of his fore-edge designs. These he called 'sculptural objects,' where an image is revealed when the pages of a very thick book are fanned out either left or right; both were published in editions of 230. Now I can see the forty-eight pages of 'Various small fires and milk' (1964) the glass is on page thirty-nine or 'Babycakes' (1970) with the pages held together with a pink ribbon. There are two versions of Rusha's street commonplace: 'Every building on Sunset Strip' (1966) published as an accordion-printed edition 299 inches long when fully opened. 'Then & now' (2005) combined every building on Hollywood Boulevard photographed in 1973 and 2004. This book was published by Steidl and is still available (ISBN  3865211054). I have a copy and it's the nearest I'll get to actually owning something by Rusha.

Book three is the real catalogue of Rusha's art. Starting with a seven-edition print of his mother from 1960 to 'Voice mail white' a thirty-print edition from 2022. The majority of the images are prints but it also includes all the pages from his books and some three-dimensional work. Each item includes comprehensive technical information and a commentary on the art. Some of these I found quite fascinating; for example, the 1971 'Fruit-Metrecal Hollywood' was printed using a variety of jams, 'Evil' (1973) prints were scented with Gres perfume, 'Zoot suit' (2015) had the letters die-cut out of paper using the Rusha-designed typeface: Boy Scout Utility Modern, it has no curves. At the back of this book and book two there are several pages with photos of Rusha working with his printers.

I think Steidl deserves congratulations for producing three books that comprehensively detail the work of this leading contemporary artist.

"Don't touch that dial" / Novelty radios 5/5

Wim Meter lives in Holland and collects novelty radios. He's a graphic designer so it seemed the obvious idea to design a book featuring his collection. From my experience, publishers of books for collectors turn out uniformly dull-looking titles with bland layouts, photos and typography, so it was refreshing to see how the author presented his collection.

The book is all in color and most spreads are devoted to a particular type of radio, pages twenty-four and five has twenty fast food products, seventy-eight and nine shows radios with a Dick Tracy theme, ninety-six and seven has slot machine and juke box radios but what makes this book so fascinating and in my view lifts it out of the ordinary is that all the radios are photographed as a still-life group or they are superimposed on a spread wide image that relates to the items shown, detailed captions and intriguing bits of information are scattered amongst the images.

Visually, this really is a stunning book and if you collect or are interested in novelty radios (and there must be some hundreds included) it is the one to get. Design, photography, printing and especially editorial content can't be beat.