various small gradual fires and resonant milk...

i'll be starting my year in hong kong for an upcoming installation at the new run run shaw media building designed by daniel libeskind for the city university of hong kong. the installation is part of a series of exhibitions called "white walls have ears", my installation opens january 12th.

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Ed Ruscha’s second seminal picture book - Various Small Fires - was self-published in 1964, and is a quintessential early Los Angeles icon. Like Ruscha’s book, I was born in Los Angeles the year it was published.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about this book - not only in relation to my own history; but how each image in the book speaks, evokes, and continues to open up. Because the book contains no text nor explanations, various small fires offers an open experience, with little resolve - a series of generic images of fires and one glass of milk, supposedly from “stock photographs”.

Fire, like sound, has a physical form that is relatively un-graspable and constantly changing. Both can feel ephemeral, quiet, loud, aggressive, beautiful, moving, dangerous, moving, growing, evaporating, smoldering, smoking - and both can influence one’s experience of a landscape.

For me, Ruscha’s book is less a narrative and more a trajectory of encounters; where turning the pages of a small book is akin to wandering through various rooms and corridors of an architecture.

Thus, I have built a series of “small fires” (and one “milk”) of colored plexi-glass and sound, in an attempt to converse with Daniel Libeskind’s design of the recently completed building - each in a different location, so as to allow for unexpected encounters.

The sculptural forms are a kind of “mash-up”, exploiting certain formal characteristics of both the architecture and the photographs towards new architectures and new fires. There has been no attempt to illustrate the forms, as much as allowing these sources to generate analog responses - as if the images in the book and the design of the spaces could be used as scores.

Somehow I keep thinking of fires in relation to Steve Reich’s text “Music as a Gradual Process”.

My own audible fires were built upon a base of field recordings of fires made several years ago in Denmark and California that have been languishing for years in the gargantuan pile of field recordings. Other sounds used include acoustic objects, small electronics, and some instruments. The approach to repetition and evolution over time, attempts to engage Reich’s text as well.

My hope is that these “fire-sites” will offer a site for casual listening, less a destination and more a kind of happening upon... where one might stop to sit near a fire, and get lost in the resonant “flames”. the works seek to create spaces of pause, towards active listening and quiet mediation.

more info: here

ruscha on photo books and small fires in 1965...

What is your purpose in publishing these books?

To begin with – when I am planning a book, I have a blind faith in what I am doing. I am not inferring I don’t have doubts, or that I haven’t made mistakes. Nor am I really interested in books as such, but I am interested in unusual kinds of publications. The first book came out of a play with words. The title came before I even thought about the pictures. I like the word “gasoline” and I like the specific quality of “twenty-six.” If you look at the book you will see how well the typography works – I worked on all that before I took the photographs. Not that I had an important message about photographs or gasoline, or anything like that – I merely wanted a cohesive thing. Above all, the photographs I use are not “arty” in any sense of the word. I think photography is dead as a fine art; its only place is in the commercial world, for technical or information purposes. I don’t mean cinema photography, but still photography, that is, limited edition, individual, hand-processed photos. Mine are simply reproductions of photos. Thus, it is not a book to house a collection of art photographs – they are technical data like industrial photography. To me, they are nothing more than snapshots.

Is there a correlation between the way you paint and the book’s?

It’s not important as far as the books are concerned.

Was it necessary for you, personally, to take the photographs?

No, anyone could. In fact, one of them was taken by someone else. I went to a stock photograph place and looked for pictures of fires, there were none. It is not important who took the photos, it is a matter of convenience, purely.

What about the layout?

That is important, the pictures have to be in the correct sequence, one without a mood taking over.

Do you know a book called “Nonverbal Communication” by Ruesch and Kees?

Yes, it is a good book, but it has a text that explains the pictures. It has something to say on a rational level that my books evade. The material is not collated with the same intent at all. Of course, the photographs used are not art photographs, but it is for people who want to know about the psychology of pictures or images. This (“Various Small Fires”) IS the psychology of pictures. Although we both use the same kind of snapshots, they are put to different use. “Nonverbal Communication” has a functional purpose, it is a book to learn things from – you don’t necessarily learn anything from my books. The pictures in that book are only an aid to verbal content. That is why I have eliminated all text from my books – I want absolutely neutral material. My pictures are not that interesting, nor the subject matter. They are simply a collection of “facts”; my book is more like a collection of “readymades.”

You are interested in some notion of the readymade?

No, what I am after is a kind of polish. Once I have decided all the detail – photos, layout, etc. – what I really want is a professional polish, a clearcut machine finish. This book is printed by the best book printer west of New York. Look how well made and crisp it is. I am not trying to create a precious limited edition book, but a mass-produced product of high order. All my books are identical. They have none of the nuances of the handmade and crafted limited edition book. It is almost worth the money to have the thrill of seeing 400 exactly identical books stacked in front of you.

excerpts from a 1965 conversation between ed ruscha and john coplans from the february 1965 issue of artforum, regarding ruscha's second book, various small fires.

when they were "students 5"...

found this ad in an old advertising/design industry mag, from 1959 which contains various articles and ads related to art directors, graphic arts services, package design, tv commercials, fonts, printing, etc.

the ad says: "we use gas & electricity! eat with knives, forks & spoons from dishes! sit in chairs & wear wrist watches! live in authentic bohemian settings! visit or send for free newspaper article! we are "students 5".

and then a list of the members: don moore, jerry mcmillan, patrick blackell, joe goode, and edward ruscha....!

i have no idea if this was a sort of anti-ad, intervention artwork, or if these guys were looking for some kind of work. if indeed this was an artwork of sorts, then it certainly pre-dates goode and ruscha's entry into the artworld, as well as ruscha's early bookworks, which certainly developed out of an interest in the language of graphic design, art direction, etc. i would certainly love to see one of the newspaper articles they sent out!

wall batterton was also part of the group, possibly a bit later. wall recently had a show at pharmaka gallery and their site included a text by ruscha about wall. here's the bit where he discusses the students 5 group: “As students, we were always searching for names for the surface area an artist happens to work on. We called it a working area; then, we called it a “playing field.” Wall once referred to it as a “construction site” amusing us to no end. My mind keeps referring to a small painting he once did of a desert landscape. In his construction site, each object, item or thing displayed had gone through a period of scrutiny, then it was put to use in the picture. Likewise, all the pictures on display in this exhibition have gone through similar moments of introspection, adventures and accomplishments.”