Jeff Brouws – författare

A beautifully arresting photographic record of North American coaling towers, which once fueled steam locomotives and powered the country.A fine art photography must-have for railroad enthusiasts and anyone interested in the industrial golden era.In 1906, America commenced a major railroad modernization project, driven by massive industrial era investment and development. A lasting symbol of this time in history remains today: the imposing coaling towers that pepper the country and which once held the coal that powered steam locomotives. Over the course of five years and 20,000 miles, photographer Jeff Brouws documented these towers. Silent Monoliths tells their story.The towers, built of concrete, a modern material with historical roots traceable to the Roman aqueducts, were constructed to replace aging (and less fire-retardant and less efficient) wooden coaling wharves and chutes. As the railroads transitioned from steam to diesel in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s, most of these coaling towers slipped into obsolescence—some demolished, others “retired-in-place” and left standing. As a result of the latter, many examples of these sculptural, architectonic remnants of industrial brawn stand in silence across North America—from Flomaton, Alabama, to the northernmost reaches of Ontario, Canada; as far west as Glenns Ferry, Idaho, to the eastern seaboard in New Haven, Connecticut.Essays from industrial and railroad historian John Hankey and art historian Marcella Hackbardt illuminate the significance of these otherworldly relics. In the spirit of Hilla and Bernd Becher, Brouws’ photographic portfolio presents over 105 examples of these austere monoliths, conveying their unique place in cultural history.

Riffs, revisions, knockoffs, and homages: artists pay tribute to Ed Ruscha's famous photo-conceptual small books. In the 1960s and 1970s, the artist Ed Ruscha created a series of small photo-conceptual artist's books, among them Twentysix Gas Stations, Various Small Fires, Every Building on the Sunset Strip, Thirtyfour Parking Lots, Real Estate Opportunities, and A Few Palm Trees. Featuring mundane subjects photographed prosaically, with idiosyncratically deadpan titles, these “small books” were sought after, collected, and loved by Ruscha's fans and fellow artists. Over the past thirty years, close to 100 other small books that appropriated or paid homage to Ruscha's have appeared throughout the world. This book collects ninety-one of these projects, showcasing the cover and sample layouts from each along with a description of the work. It also includes selections from Ruscha's books and an appendix listing all known Ruscha book tributes.These small books revisit, imitate, honor, and parody Ruscha in form, content, and title. Some rephotograph his subjects: Thirtyfour Parking Lots, Forty Years Later. Some offer a humorous variation: Various Unbaked Cookies (which concludes, as did Ruscha's Various Small Fires, with a glass of milk), Twentynine Palms (twenty-nine photographs of palm-readers' signs). Some say something different: None of the Buildings on Sunset Strip. Some reach for a connection with Ruscha himself: 17 Parked Cars in Various Parking Lots Along Pacific Coast Highway Between My House and Ed Ruscha's.With his books, Ruscha expanded the artist's field of permissible subjects, approaches, and methods. With VARIOUS SMALL BOOKS, various artists pay tribute to Ed Ruscha and extend the legacy of his books.