In the 1995 movie Smoke (dir. Wayne Wang and Paul Auster), Auggie, the proprietor of the Brooklyn cigar store where the story unfolds, is played by Harvey Keitel. For the past 14 years, Auggie has been taking a photo every day from his front door. One of his customers (played by William Hurt), a dispirited novelist whose wife has been killed in a bank robbery, doesn't understand what the photos mean. Auggie tells him, “Take take your time, it'll add up.”

Perhaps Paul Auster, who wrote the story, was influenced by Ed Ruscha, whose first photo book was Twentysix Gasoline Stations. It’s a thin white volume of deadpan black-and-white photographs of gas stations in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, with no text, just captions identifying the stations and their locations.

This 1962 project was the first of dozens of simply designed photo books Mr. Ruscha created of everyday scenes, such as the parking lots, swimming pools and palm trees of Los Angeles, and most notably, Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1996). For that book Mr. Ruscha photographed both sides of the street early one morning when no one was around; he created the book as an accordion that can be pulled out to 27 feet. It was originally priced at about $4 prompting him to remark, “I want to be the Henry Ford of book making.” Today a good copy can go for as much as $8,000.

In the process, Mr. Ruscha created a new genre of artist books that were simple, easily produced and inexpensive, and which have become a touchstone of conceptual art that have inspired a new generation of artists and new modalities for self publishing.

An exhibition of books by Mr. Ruscha and his followers, based on a new book, Various Small Books | Referencing Various Small Books by Ed Ruscha (M.I.T. Press 2013), is currently on view at the Gagosian Gallery. Among them is a book by the Swedish-born artist Chris Svensson called Various Studios and Homes Inhabited by Ed Ruscha. Noriko Ambe took a copy of Mr. Ruscha’s book Artists who make pieces, Artists who do books and did her signature cuts to create Cuts on a book of ED Ruscha (above). California artist Kim Stringfellow produced Twentysix Abandoned Jackrabbit Homesteads, an homage to Mr. Ruscha’s seminal Twentysix Gas Stations, in a self-published edition of 25.

Also included are books by Jeff Brouws, Wendy Burton, Bruce Nauman, Jonathan Monk and Tom Sachs, among more than 100 contemporary artists. The show continues through April 27 at Gagosian Gallery, 980 Madison Avenue, NY, NY. When you go, allow yourself plenty of time to study and reflect because photography is not permitted, while note-taking and sketching are. 

And now for something completely different

On Sunday, March 17, the School of Visual Arts presents the SVA/BBC Design Film Festival, a full day of rare and groundbreaking BBC films, many of which will be screened for the first time in the United States. Highlights include Cracked Actor: David Bowie, the 1975 profile of David Bowie at the most vulnerable time of his life (photo above, courtesy BBC), and Chelsea Hotel, a film about the historic residence as seen through the eyes of the artists who lived there including Andy Warhol, William S. Burroughs and others. From 11 am to 7:30 pm at SVA Theater, 333 West 23 Street. Tickets$15/$10.) See what Steve Heller has to say about Bowie here.

This Just In from Boston

Sunday, March 17: Last chance for Saul Robbins | Initial Intake at Griffin Museum at Stoneham Theatre, 395 Main Street, Stoneham, MA. Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 1 - 6 pm.