Much has been written about Ed Ruscha’s publications. Milestones in the history of postmodern artists’ books, his editorial projects marked a decisive shift towards industrial offset printing and helped establish the artist’s book as an inexpensive art form. Ruscha’s publications of the 1960s and 1970s were conceived as conceptual propositions, characterised by the interplay of abundant imagery, minimal captions, and the use of “text-as-image” on their covers. Yet, as simple as their concepts might seem, each book underwent a yearlong process of gestation, as Ruscha confessed in an interview with Willoughby Sharp for Avalanche in 1973:

“When I did the books, I had a complete feeling of creation in the same sense that a woman would have a child. I even wrote that down: These books are my children.”

Published in an edition of 700 copies, Some Los Angeles Apartments is his third publication, following Twentysix Gasoline Stations (1963) and Various Small Fires (1964). Its deliberately neutral photographs, restrained typography, and sequential format transform the ordinary into the subject of an artist’s book. Tautological in its conception, the edition contains precisely what its title announces. While the book unfolds through 34 photographs in the manner of a real estate catalogue, its rhythmic layout reveals a deliberate sophistication. More than a record of real estate properties, the publication constitutes a topography of Los Angeles through its buildings and signs: Ruscha’s psychogeography in the age of consumerism and Pop Art.

For Ruscha, however, the subject matter was ultimately secondary to the form and production of the book. As he explained in an interview with John Coplans:

“Once I have decided all the details – photos, layout, etc. – what I really want is a professional polish, a clear-cut machine finish. This book is printed by the best book printer west of New York. Look how well made and crisp it is. I am not trying to create a precious limited edition book, but a mass-produced product of high order. All my books are identical. They have none of the nuances of the hand-made and crafted limited edition book. It is almost worth the money to have the thrill of seeing 400 exactly identical books stacked in front of you.” (Artforum, 1965)

This emphasis on uniformity, mechanical precision, and mass production is central to Ruscha’s conception of the artist’s book. Rather than treating the book as a unique or handcrafted object, he approaches it as a reproducible work whose meaning is inseparable from its serial form and industrial mode of production.