Ticket Boot an Pyramid, Egypt 1990
For more than twenty years, Richard Misrach has been photographing the American desert, revealing a complex landscape that is as captivating as it is mysterious. His newest book and travelling exhibition, Crimes and Splendors: The Desert Cantos of Richard Misrach (Bulfinch, 1996), chronicles the development of his involvement with the desert as he travels across terrain that is both seductive and hazardous, filled with an eery silence. Through his numerous cantos's (groups of pictures) Misrach has created one of the most extensive projects in contemporary photography. For most people, the desert defines itself as a place where little happens, except the occasional glimpse of tumbleweed blowing across the sand. There are no movie theaters, no coffee shops, no malls, no cars, no visible towns for miles and few noises, except the sound of your own breathing. In Misrach's desert, the land vibrates with underground nuclear testing and the sky illuminates with radiation seeping into the atmosphere, creating fantastic colors at every glance.
Whether photographing a flooded town, a desert fire, an abandoned nuclear test site or the colors on the horizon emanating from a small town miles away, Richard Misrach draws the viewer into his world through his mastery of color. Ranging from beautiful lakes to secret military bunkers to speed racing on the Utah salt flats, Misrach's work chronicles mans involvement in the desert, while always paying homage to the intrinsic beauty provided by nature.
It's through beauty that Misrach's social concerns are most revealed. By pulling the viewer into a glowing light or calm body of water, he presents situations which leave us asking questions about the American desert -- a desert which continues to heal and revive itself regardless of mans actions.
One of his latest body of work, Heavenly Bodies, focuses our attention upward, as planets and stars become his subjects. In his newest series, Misrach drives along the highway searching for a road or vista that calls out to him. When he finds a place he sets up his camera, waiting hours for night to arrive. Each image takes between twenty minutes and several hours, as stars become dancing lights across the sky, fields of color appear out of blackness and sunrises peak through the tops of mountain ranges. Like his series of skies, Heavenly Bodies is printed 4 x 5 feet, presented without a horizon and framed without borders. The effect is a montage of astrological information that is beyond our imagination. It is a powerful body of work which reminds us that there are forces far greater than human kind.
Richard Misrach's work has been exhibited throughout the world and is included in most museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Museum of Modern Art [New York], Center National d'Art at de Culture Georges Pompidou (Paris), National Museum of American Art (Washington, DC) and Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Art (Japan).
REGRESAR A LA REVISTA
