The exhibition features nearly 20 large-scale pigment prints from the artist's 'Untitled' series. Considered a pioneer in the 1970s for his use of color photography, Misrach's newest pictures mark a radical shift from his past work and herald a new era in photography's history.
PaceWildenstein and Pace/MacGill are pleased to announce an exhibition of recent photographs by
Richard Misrach on view in the Chelsea gallery located at 534 West 25th Street. The exhibition
features nearly twenty large-scale pigment prints from the artist’s “Untitled” series (2007-2009). The
photographs range in size from 4 x 6 feet to nearly 8 x 10 feet. An opening reception will be held at 534
West 25th Street on Thursday, January 14th from 6-8 pm.
Considered a pioneer in the 1970s for his use of color photography, Misrach once again pushes the
medium’s boundaries. Misrach’s newest pictures – the majority of which are made entirely without film –
mark a radical shift from his past work and herald a new era in photography’s history. With the advent of
digital photography, the analog process and the color negative will eventually be rendered obsolete and
with this body of work, Misrach carefully examines the evocative beauty of the color negative.
Using the
positive capture – the equivalent of a negative from an analogue camera - from a state-of-the-art digital
camera, Misrach creates ravishing images of landscapes and seascapes in a reversed color spectrum. True
colors are inverted to become their photographic, “negative” opposites. The series continues Misrach’s
portrait of the American landscape, yet transforms the natural world into an almost hallucinatory alternate
reality: vast expanses of sea assume pink and red hues, and sand dunes in Nevada and rocky outcroppings
along the Oregon coast glow like sculpted mountains of ice. Misrach’s subjects are simultaneously
otherworldly and wholly familiar.
When viewed together, the photographs present an unorthodox
exploration of the natural environment as translated by the power of digital technology.
Richard Misrach (b. 1949, Los Angeles, CA) received a BA in 1971 from the University of California,
Berkeley. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including four National Endowment for the Arts
Fellowships (1973, 1977, 1984, 1992), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1979), the International Center of
Photography Infinity Award for a Publication (1988), the Kulturpreis for Lifetime Achievement in
Photography from the German Society of Photography (2002), and the Lucie Award for Achievement in
Fine Art Photography (2008).
Misrach’s photographs have been the subject of numerous exhibitions and can be found in over 50
museum collections worldwide, including the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the High Museum, Atlanta; the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Monographs of his work include: Telegraph 3 A.M.: The Street People of Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley
(1974); Desert Cantos (1987); Bravo 20: The Bombing of the American West (1990); Violent Legacies:
Three Cantos (1992); Crimes and Splendors: The Desert Cantos of Richard Misrach (1996); The Sky
Book (2000); Richard Misrach: Golden Gate (2001); Pictures of Paintings (2002); Chronologies (2005);
and On the Beach (2007).
For more information on Richard Misrach please contact Irene Papanestor
at irene@pacemacgill.com or call 212. 759. 7999.
Opening reception Thursday, January 14th from 6-8 pm.
PaceWildenstein
534 West 25th Street - New York USA
Gallery hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10-6
free admission