HARD LIGHT

(Los Angeles): [Heavy Industries Publications], 1978. First printing. Fine.. Signed first edition of Ruscha and Weiner's photo-novel, starring Shelley Chamberlain, Suzanne Chandler, and Susan Haller in a captivatingly oblique visual drama. The last of Ruscha's artist's books and one of only a few to admit a plausibly narrative reading, HARD LIGHT is also Ruscha's broadest collaboration: with Lawrence Weiner, credited as co-author, but also with Chamberlain, Chandler, and Haller, who, like actors in motion pictures, cannot help but interpret the direction given to them, and who drink coffee, wear jeans, and drive cars like the stars they are. (Haller is also noted as a third photographer by Engberg & Phillpot, though not in the book's sparse credits.) Buquet strains to see a "barely veiled reference to feminist demands" and potential "derisive" dialogue with Lynda Benglis, while Ruscha himself, interviewed while in the process of making the book, said only "We went out and got a few girls and shot some pictures." Critics are cautious and the author silent, but the book speaks. Uncommon signed. 7'' x 5''. Original glossy color wrappers. 65 photographic illustrations by Ruscha, Weiner, and Susan Haller. [120] pages. Signed by Ruscha in pen on front free endpaper. PROVENANCE: From the collection of longtime MIT Press editor Roger Conover, who published several books by and about Ruscha. Trace edgewear. Else clean, bright, and sharp.