Dutch Details

Deventer: The Octopus Foundation and Sonsbeek 71, 1971. First edition. Original card covers. Very Good. FIRST EDITION OF THE RAREST RUSCHA BOOK; ONE OF ONLY AN ESTIMATED 200 COPIES. IN OUTSTANDING CONDITION. "In December 1970, Ruscha was invited to produce a photobook in conjunction with the Sonsbeek 71 exhibition in the Netherlands. Wim Beeren, the commissioner of the international festival, chose the location (Stadskanaal-a village in Groningen built along both sides of a straight canal) for the commission, but left the specifics of the project up to Ruscha. Once on site, Ruscha began photographing the facades of the houses along the canal, undoubtedly informed by his panorama of Los Angeles, Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966). The topography of the Dutch village led Ruscha to a different approach, however, and the book is conceptually more performative than the earlier work, inasmuch as it directly encompasses a site-specific action: the artist's journey back and forth across the bridges of the canal, with each trip documented by six photographs, which progress from a distant view to a close-up detail of the house directly across both sides of a given bridge. The oversized horizontal format of the book, with each leaf a gatefold representing the two sequences of photographs made on a single bridge, is also unique in Ruscha's oeuvre. Although the book was supposed to have an open edition, available by mail order, it did not sell well and the printer removed and disposed all extra copies from its warehouse. Dutch Details is thus the rarest of Ruscha's books" with an estimated 200 copies in existence. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY) collection website).

Deventer: The Octopus Foundation and Sonsbeek 71, 1971. Oblong folio (approx. 4 1/2 x 15 in / 112 x 380mm), original white card covers printed in black; custom box. Complete with 116 black and white photographs on 10 fold-out leaves. Some spots of foxing on extreme edges, but otherwise fine; most importantly without the band of toning of the front cover evident in so many copies. By far, the nicest copy we've handled. RARE.