Art 330/530 What do Photographs Tell Us?

RPPC is an acronym for real photo post card, referencing a post card made in a photographic darkroom. These were somewhat faddish from the turn of the 20th century until WWI, although many were still made up into the 1970s. They often include text done with lettering paint on the actual negative or with some sort of overlay. You can image search many subjects along with RPPC and see consistently porportioned images mostly from the earlier 1900s. Although Route 66 was opened in 1926, well after the time of most RPPCs, searching on route 66 gas station RPPC does yield many images...

All of these images were made to promote these businesses, all likely no longer operating. They are taken by different photographers, but adhere to the same compositional formula.

What exactly is being promoted here, as we move beyond the original purpose of the post cards and think of these images in the grander scheme of things? How do they factor into the contemplation of certain American obsessions? What do they tell us now, and what questions are they asking us?

In 1963, in the midst of Pop Art, Ed Ruscha decided to publish a book of his photographs of Route 66 gasoline stations, taken as he drove between LA to his boyhood home of Oklahoma City, something he did five times a year. Although they emulate the deadpan post card view somewhat there is much more variation in these compositions.

 

The first edition was numbered and occasionally signed, which Ruscha later admitted was a "mistake".