On Art: Jeff Brouws/Ed Ruscha

"The beauty of Ruscha's work is that it appears authorless, effortless, totally objective, artfully artless, which I think gives it a universal appeal, as if his voice and vision are ours, as if he's saying: you could do this too. Twentysix Gasoline Stations led me down the typographical path; it made me want to photographically collect "types" of things as a way of systematically surveying the unique qualities of similar objects, a way to remind myself that everything in the world is interesting, mystifying, individual, and worthy of our attention, no matter how banal or ordinary."

Jeff Brouws on Ed Ruscha's Twentysix Gasoline Stations (in Readymades, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2003)

Pictured above: Edward Ruscha, Phillips 66, Flagstaff, Arizona, 1962, from Twentysix Gasoline Stations, 1963. Gelatin silver print, 4 11/16 × 4 11/16 in. (11.9 × 11.9 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from The Leonard and Evelyn Lauder Foundation, and Diane and Thomas Tuft 2004.467 © Ed Ruscha