24 pieces by Allen Ruppersberg

Since listing Allen Ruppersberg’s fantastic exhibition catalog in my list of Top 10 Photobooks of 2009, I’ve been doing more investigation on Ruppersberg. In the late 60’s and early 70’s he experimented with the way banal images, once combined, create narrative. Ruppersberg published three books juxtaposing pictures of motel rooms with other ordinary pictures sometimes containing narrative clues (ketchup drizzled on a table, a picture removed from a wall). These three books were called 23 Pieces (1968), 24 Pieces (1970) and 25 Pieces (1971).

I was able to track down a copy of 24 Pieces. See the whole thing here.

Note the colophon: “Design and Photography by Gary Krueger.”