Picture Show: Recycled Gasoline Stations

The photographs on the pages of Ed Ruscha’s book Twentysix Gasoline Stations depict filling stations across the United States of America in the form of a stark, beautiful, and modern travel narrative. Inspired by Ruscha’s seminal work, the Japanense-Danish photographer Eric Tabuchi—who describes his fondness for petrol stations by likening their logos to coats of arms—took the concept into new territory with his project, “Twentysix Abandoned Gasoline Stations,” which focused on nonoperational stations in various states of decay and, in Tabuchi’s words, “portrayed them as ruins of a bygone civilization.” Now, taking the concept into yet newer territory, Tabuchi offers “Twentysix Recycled Gasoline Stations,” which captures images of abandoned gasoline stations that have since been re-purposed and transformed into any number of new businesses, representing a shift from the apocalyptic to the adaptive.

“At a moment when our planet-in-crisis is re-examining its economic strategy,” says Tabuchi, “I have made an inventory of stations that have been recycled to become businesses as far-removed as bakeries, advertising agencies, and even a funeral parlor; as if, after the age of the car, life had moved on—precarious and haphazard, but also imaginative and determined.”

What follows is a selection from that series.

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