Universiẗat, Diss., 2004--München.

American painter Ed Ruscha has been using medium of photography since his studies at Chouinard ART Institute in Los Angeles. In 1963 he published author's book Twentysix Gasoline Stations which depicts gasoline stations on the road between Los Angeles and Oklahoma. My diploma thesis describes Ruscha´s book and the time and circumstances under which it was being made. I am putting Ruscha´s book in the context of cold war and atmosphere of this period. I am writing about american individualism and expansion of automobility and its strategies. I focused deeply on Ruscha´s early artist period and his studies in Los Angeles. I am describing the historical context of Ruscha´s way from Oklahoma to Los Angeles. I emphasize its influence on american society. I inquire Ruscha's point of view to art, art history and his resistance to mainstream that was coming from New York to California. The book Twentysix Gasoline Stations was published three years after Ruscha's graduation, so it is considered as an early masterpiece. I am writing about fusion of art and roadside imagery and its historical context of 30's and 40's. I emphasize their difference and their similarity. The field of my study was extended by Paul Virilio´s essay Aesthetics of Disappearance where Virilio draws relationship between automobilism and cinematography. Through his essay I am coming back to Ed Ruscha and thanks to it I am finding new relationships in Ruscha's work. I enhance the atmosphere of this period by mentioning roadmovies and its link to american individualism and explosion of automobilism. I contrast this context with situation in Europe, its identity and geopolitical influences. At the end of my thesis I emphasize Ruscha's work and his contribution to questions about aesthetic and non-aesthetic and his reflexion of automobilism expansion and a book form as a new way to present art.

This thesis proposes a fresh engagement with the idea of the archaic as a means to recover and replenish some of the lost vitality suffered during what William Barrett characterized the modern period as “the gigantic externalization of life.” An introductory essay examines how the related ideas of the archaic, the primal, and the prehistoric have at key moments provided a source of creative energy for the arts of the last century. Collections of found material, and several photographic studies document the city of Niagara Falls—icon of American pop culture and faded relic of romanticism. The photographs present an alternative to the world of the touristic snapshot, and address the questions: In the age of simulation how do we know what is real anymore? Can we learn to see with archaic eyes?

This thesis proposes a fresh engagement with the idea of the archaic as a means to recover and replenish some of the lost vitality suffered during what William Barrett characterized the modern period as “the gigantic externalization of life.” An introductory essay examines how the related ideas of the archaic, the primal, and the prehistoric have at key moments provided a source of creative energy for the arts of the last century. Collections of found material, and several photographic studies document the city of Niagara Falls—icon of American pop culture and faded relic of romanticism. The photographs present an alternative to the world of the touristic snapshot, and address the questions: In the age of simulation how do we know what is real anymore? Can we learn to see with archaic eyes?