Ed Ruscha

May Company, 6150 Laurel Canyon, North Hollywood

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About this artwork

This aerial shot turns a banal urban landscape into an abstract geometric design. Ruscha captured this empty Los Angeles parking area for the May Company Department Store early one Sunday morning in 1967 from a helicopter. From above the parking lots appear to be abandoned urban spaces, covered in oil stains that mark the traces of human presence. In 1999, Ed Ruscha selected 30 images from his artist book ‘Thirtyfour Parking Lots’ 1967/1999 and reprinted them as the print portfolio ‘Parking Lot Series’ 1967/1999 of which this image is one. He said, “over the years I began to appreciate print quality and see my photographs as not necessarily reproductions for a book, but as having their own life as silver gelatine prints.”

Updated before 2020

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  • artist:
    Ed Ruscha (born 1937) American
  • title:
    May Company, 6150 Laurel Canyon, North Hollywood
  • date created:
    1967/99
  • materials:
    Gelatin silver print
  • measurements:
    39.40 x 39.40 cm (framed: 56.50 x 56.50 x 4.50 cm)
  • object type:
  • credit line:
    ARTIST ROOMS National Galleries of Scotland and Tate. Lent by Artist Rooms Foundation 2011
  • accession number:
    AL00250
  • gallery:
This artwork is part of Artist Rooms
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Ed Ruscha

Ed Ruscha