Choisi – one at a time presents the new display of the Artphilein Foundation, with the photo book “Twentysix Gasoline Stations” by Ed Ruscha and a collection of homages to the artist.

In 1963 “Twentysix Gasoline Stations” by Ed Ruscha (Omaha, Nebraska, 1937) marks an important step in the history of contemporary artist books. In his first photo book, the artist presented images of 26 gasoline stations along the Route 66, the 3700 km highway between Chicago and Santa Monica, which crosses the States of Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. This book was edited and published by the artist himself, with the aim of achieving a self-reliant work of art accessible to a wider audience.
In “Twentysix Gasoline Stations” the choice of the gasoline stations as the subject of images, the form itself of the book and the number 26 have been influenced and inspired many artists, until today.

On display at Choisi – one at a time, from the collection of the Artphilein Foundation, is the unsigned and not numbered edition of 1969 of “Twentysix Gasoline Stations” by Ed Ruscha, together with a selection of artist’s books of the last twenty-five years, where artists draw inspiration and pay a tribute to him.
This exhibition ends with “To E.R.“ the tribute by Giuseppe Chietera, published by Artphilein Editions in 2014, which includes 26 photographs of abandoned or converted gasoline stations in Ticino (Switzerland).