Richard Misrach

Richard Misrach is one of the most influential photographers of his generation. In the 1970s, he helped pioneer the renaissance of color photography and large-scale presentation that are in widespread practice today. Best known for his ongoing series, Desert Cantos, a multi-faceted approach to the study of place and man's complex relationship to it, he has worked in the landscape for over 40 years. A current exhibition of this work is being shown at the San Jose Museum of Art, alongside experimental composter Guillermo Galindo, that explores the unseen realities of the US-Mexico borderlands. Other notable bodies of work include his documentation of the industrial corridor along the Mississippi River known as "Cancer Alley", the study of weather, time, color and light in his serial photographs of the Golden Gate bridge, and On The Beach, an aerial perspective of human interaction and isolation. Recent projects mark departures from his work to date. In one series, he has experimented with new advances in digital capture and printing, foregrounding the negative as an end in itself and digitally creating images with astonishing detail and color spectrum. More recently, he built a powerful narrative out of images of graffiti produced in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, made with a 4-megapixel pocket camera. In fall 2012, in collaboration with landscape architect Kate Orff, Misrach launched a major book and exhibition entitled Petrochemical America, which addresses the health and environmental issues associated with our dependency on oil.
Source Fraenkel Gallery