Ed Ruscha & Robert Adams
Vintage Photographs and Books

January 23 - March 6, 1999

Andrew Roth and Glenn Horowitz are pleased to announce the opening of Andrew Roth LLC. Andrew Roth is affiliated with Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, located in Manhattan at 19 East 76th Street and in East Hampton at 87 Newton Lane. In this new establishment, we will deal primarily in rare photographic literature as well as vintage and contemporary photographs. We will continue to publish rare-book catalogues and limited-edition monographs and artist’s books. The space is designed to enable both book display and image exhibition. Our location, 160a East 70th Street was previously the home of Ex Libris, a rare-book business owned by Elaine Lustig Cohen for more than 25 years.

Our inaugural exhibition is comprised of vintage photographs and books by Edward Ruscha and Robert Adams, accompanied by the catalogue Eden and Points West, written by Marvin Heiferman.

Edward Ruscha will exhibit 21 vintage photographs from the ’60s, culled from images produced for his various artist’s books. There will be a selection of published and unpublished works from Twentysix Gasoline Stations, Thirtyfour Parking Lots, Some Los Angeles Apartments, and Real Estate Opportunities. Along with the photographs, we will display a complete set of Ruscha’s first-edition artist’s books and additional ephemera.

Robert Adams will present Eden, a series of 17 photographs made in 1968 in and around an off-ramp truck stop and cafe in Colorado. In conjunction with the exhibition, Andrew Roth has published Eden in a limited edition of 1,000 copies. Of these, 50 are signed by the artist and slipcased.

In the accompanying 2,500-word essay, Marvin Heiferman examines the works of these two artists who share a common visual language, although their point of departure is distinctly different. He parallels Ruscha and Adams’s early development and brings into perspective their fascination with the changing terrain of the American West and the new vernacular cropping up along the roadside. Both artists were part of the stable at Castelli Graphics in the ’70s, where Heiferman was employed as chief curator.