Potato

Ed Ruscha’s simple composition depicts a humble potato casting a delicate shadow onto a smooth surface. Created early in his career, this photograph shows his developing interest in elevating ordinary objects to the status of high art. Throughout his career Ruscha has also aimed to create neutral images, or as he once put it, images that followed “a non-statement with a no-style.” This is especially true for the photobooks he created in the 1960s and ’70s, such as Various Small Fires and Milk, on view in a case in this gallery.