archivebeach

Richard Misrach, from On the Beach, Chromogenic print, Collection of the artist, Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, Mac Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles, Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York, and National Gallery of Art, Anonymous gift.

On a Large-Format (Postapocalyptic) Beach, Revisited after 9/11

Art Institute of Chicago
111 South Michigan Avenue
312-443-3600
Chicago
Galleries 1-4
Richard Misrach:
On the Beach
September 15-November 25, 2007

Richard Misrach, renowned color photographer of the desert, has turned his eye — and his camera — to water. For the past five years he has worked on a series of pictures of beaches, the ocean, sunbathers, and swimmers. Dramatically scaled — some are as large as 6 x 10 feet — and shot from above, the photographs envelop the viewer with a strangely disorienting perspective. Although lush and colorful, they evoke a postapocalyptic world. The title On the Beach also references Nevil Shute’s Cold War novel about nuclear holocaust. This traveling exhibition of more than 20 large-scale works premieres at the Art Institute.

Misrach, a pioneer of color photography, has long been known for his images of the American desert. These monumental photographs of beaches, the ocean, sunbathers, and swimmers signal a new direction for Misrach that is both playful and deeply contemplative. While a few of these images have been exhibited over the past few years, never before have so many been seen together. Twenty of Misrach's large-scale, rapturous surf and sand studies make their museum debuts at the Art Institute of Chicago this fall before embarking on a two-year national tour.

"I've come to believe that beauty can be a very powerful conveyor of difficult ideas," Richard Misrach has said. For more than 30 years, he has been producing stunning photographs of horrific subjects, focusing on man's often-disastrous effect on the land. His previous work in the series Desert Cantos explores the American desert-fires and floods, military-scarred terrain and pits of dead animals-in lush images that accentuate the formidable power and terrible beauty of the landscape.

His new series On the Beach works with similarly productive juxtapositions. All of the images originate from a very high viewpoint that does not include any sort of horizon. As a result, humans appear miniscule, and the vast expanses of sand and water offer a radically different perspective to the viewer. The images are very large: new digital technology has made possible dramatically scaled prints. As a result, the photographs, with their dizzying viewpoints and lack of narrative suggestion, are strangely disorienting. Depicting people as small, often isolated figures in an immense scene, the photographs remind us of the fragility and relative unimportance of humanity in the face of seemingly infinite nature. To a greater extent than even Misrach's own desert photographs, these powerful pictures partake of the sublime in the sense that the 18th century philosopher of aesthetics Edmund Burke articulated: they produce astonishment, awe, and perhaps even terror.

All of this is fitting for pictures made after the events of September 11, 2001, for although sunny and colorful, these photographs also evoke a postapocalyptic world; the title On the Beach explicitly references Nevil Shute's Cold War novel about nuclear holocaust. The figures floating in the sea in Untitled #394-03 seem to plummet through an endless cerulean abyss, arms flailing to their sides; the illusion is encouraged by the disorienting aerial view and absence of other figures or landmarks for reference. In other images, lone figures or clinging couples appear to be the last people on the planet.

Misrach's particular gift for expressing difficult and troubling ideas-devastation, alienation, decay, isolation-through images of rare beauty is fully on display in this new series. From its premiere at the Art Institute of Chicago, the exhibition will travel to the Contemporary Museum in Honolulu; the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington; and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

Richard Misrach: On the Beach is curated by Elizabeth Siegel, Associate Curator of Photography, the Art Institute of Chicago. This exhibition was organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and made possible by David Yurman.