I made it to Strand tonight just in time to hear what Richard Misrach had to say about his recent project and book called On The Beach. I had no expectations of any kind. I had heard that the book was big but this thing is enormous! It is so big and so beautiful and so extremely awe inspiring that I couldn’t not buy one. I tried really hard to stop myself but before long I was in line to have my copy signed by Misrach himself.
As for the photographs, I remember seeing the first group of them at Pace Wildenstein in 2004. I was instantly smitten yet totally envious. They were stunning photographs and had been made from a very unique and ambiguous perspective. Everyone seemed to be asking where the hell did he shoot these from. And yet not once during the show or since then have I had any of the thoughts or ideas in my mind that Misrach uses to contextualize the photographs. I can get so caught up in the beauty and awe of someone’s work that I forget to think about what I’m actually seeing and what it might represent. I also forget to relate how someone’s new work is informed by their past projects.
Misrach showed slides and described the beach photographs as evoking a post-apocalyptic world. According to him the work was informed by the traumatic events of 9/11. At one point in the slide show he paired the above falling figure with a close up of a man in a similar pose from one of the beach photographs. He followed that pairing by saying that the poses were identical. He discussed how the angle he was shooting from was the same (only in reverse) angle that the falling bodies from the towers were shot from. He also referenced a cold war novel from the 50’s called On The Beach from which he took his title as well as a T.S. Elliott poem.
I was surprised by all the references for a body of work that I assumed was all about aesthetics, the sublime and beauty. I never bothered to look deeper into it to see what was underneath. Although I am always curious about what an artist will say about there work, sometimes it’s a question of whether I want to buy what they are saying or not. In many instances the talk seems to be a way for the artist to justify what they are doing. In Misrach’s case everything he said made complete sense, especially in the context of his older projects. It was an enlightening evening and I’m glad I went.
One last thing I forgot to mention is that Misrach discussed his moving away from pure photographic traditionalism in that he is cropping the 8 x 10 negative and using digital retouching to make these photographs the way he envisioned them. He admitted to having removed figures from the water and beach to create the isolated feeling he wanted. I never would have thought that if he hadn’t mentioned it. Not that it really matters to me anyway, but I find it interesting nonetheless.
Read a great book review here.
Listen to or download a podcast of Misrach giving a similar slide show at The Art Institute of Chicago.
I think these things are gonna sell like hot cakes so you better get one fast (if your coffee table is big enough).
As an added bonus, Strand has about 40 copies of William Eggleston’s Los Alamos which is supposedly out of print, get one while they last.