Every Building In The Sunset Strip in Gagosian exhibition opening Thursday

Dave Dyment
Every Building In The Sunset Strip
Toronto, Canada: MKG127, 2015
54 pp., 14 x 18 cm. [book], accordion fold
Edition of 95

Ed Ruscha’s classic book Every Building On The Sunset Strip, remade twice: as text and with scenes from television and cinema.

The bookwork recounts stories about every property included in Ruscha’s original (which was titled The Sunset Strip on both the cover and spine), from Schwab’s Pharmacy at 8024 Sunset Blvd (the site of many Hollywood legends, a few of them true) to the Jaguar Dealership that remains fifty years later, at 9176 Sunset. The entries range from the banal (once a beauty salon, now a vacant lot) to the sensational (racketeering, murder, celebrity scandal, etc).

The book is housed in a silkscreened stiff envelope which contains a unique print. The prints couple close-up scans of Ruscha’s photographs with similar views found in film and television shows, ranging from Charlie’s Angels to Scarface.

Taken together, they form a portrait of the 2.4 km stretch of the famous boulevard, and how it has changed over the past half century.

The bookwork and several of the framed images are included in the exhibition Ed Ruscha Books and Co., which opens this Thursday night from 6 to 8 pm at Gagosian Gallery (456 North Camden Drive) in Beverly Hills. See following post for details.