Richard Misrach: Photographs from the Collection
October 12, 2011 - February 5, 2012
Sublimity and decay share the spotlight in the photographs of Richard Misrach on view in the Theater Gallery this autumn. Selected pictures drawn from BAM/PFA’s collection include the artist’s early forays into color photography as well as his large-scale chromogenic prints, a format that Misrach helped to popularize.
Shown in its entirety for the first time in BAM/PFA history, Misrach’s Graecism portfolio (1979–82) is a set of twelve vintage dye transfer prints of Greek and Roman ruins. Lit by strobes at night and shot using a long exposure technique, the resulting imagery takes on the quality of a modern Hollywood sound stage.
Presented with Graecism are samplings from Misrach’s acclaimed series Golden Gate, Desert Cantos, and Bravo 20 Bombing Range, all part of Misrach’s ongoing visual narrative examining the complex relationship between humans and nature. For example, Dead Fish (1986), from Bravo 20 Bombing Range, documents a place once considered the “source of creation” by Nevada’s Paiute Indians that was used by the United States Navy to test high-explosive bombs. For his Golden Gate series (1997–2000), Misrach secured his camera to the front porch of his home in the Berkeley Hills and captured more than seven hundred images of the Golden Gate Bridge at different times of day over a period of about three years. Although sharing the same exact vantage point, each photograph is unique in its colors, hues, and atmospheric conditions, revealing that what is fixed is actually ever changing.
This exhibition coincides with 1991: The Oakland–Berkeley Fire Aftermath, Photographs by Richard Misrach and also celebrates Misrach’s longtime association with BAM/PFA. A UC Berkeley alumnus, Misrach was featured in our MATRIX Program in 1989, and in 2002 we presented Richard Misrach: Berkeley Work that comprised two series, Telegraph 3 A.M. and Golden Gate.
Stephanie Cannizzo
Assistant Curator
