Hard Light

Ed Ruscha and Lawrence Weiner

1978

Published by Heavy Industry Publications (Los Angeles) and Moved Pictures (New York)

122 pages

12.5 x 17.5 cm. 

This is, according to those behind Idea Books in London, the most beautiful book in the world. I pretty much agree. In any case, Ed Ruscha has made the most beautiful books in the world, so it is important to have one by him in any library. And this one, which not being the rarest with regard to print run is one of the least vindicated, is the closest thing Ruscha ever did to the world of fashion. It is a kind of abstract photo-novel divided into nine chapters, whose protagonists are Shelley Chamberlain, Suzanne Chandler and Susan Haller. There is no text nor structure nor a true narrative arc. There is only the intention of following and observing three women that seem to know what they are doing. It is a language that anticipates narrative fashion publishers, also in the way its protagonists dress and are captured. But beyond its (involuntary) link to the language of fashion, this is a book that creates a primary, quasi-mystical pleasure, undoubtedly emphasised by a mysterious, iconic and memorable title: Hard Light.

Luis Cerveró