Richard Misrach (American, Born 1949)
Untitled #517-02, 2002
Digital chromogenic color print
48 x 114 inches
Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles and Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

Richard Misrach (American, Born 1949)
Untitled #192-03, 2003
Digital chromogenic color print
49 x 111 inches
Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles and Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

Richard Misrach (American, Born 1949)
Untitled #696-05, 2005 (detail)
Digital chromogenic color print
79 x 96 inches
Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles and Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

Richard Misrach (American, Born 1949)
Untitled #394-03, 2003
71 x 81
Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles and Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

On the Beach: Photographs by Richard Misrach

The Contemporary Museum, Makiki Heights
December 15, 2007 - March 9, 2008

"I've come to believe that beauty can be a very powerful conveyor of difficult ideas." —Richard Misrach

For almost 40 years Richard Misrach has been producing beautiful photographs of the land, focusing on man's relationship with, and often-disastrous impact on, his environment. His extended series Desert Cantos (exhibited at TCM in 1997) explores the grandeur of the American desert with lush images depicting varied aspects of desert life, from fires and floods to military-scarred terrain, changing skies and pits of dead animals. With a sensitive eye attuned to color and a belief in the power of aesthetics to effect change, Richard Misrach has been a pioneer in color photography and is one of the most influential and internationally recognized artists working today.

Recently he has turned his camera to water, photographing beaches, the ocean, sunbathers, and swimmers from a viewpoint high above. Digital technology has made possible dramatically scaled prints, some as large as 6 by 10 feet. The photographs offer subtle detail yielded by Misrach's use of a view camera that produces 8 by 10-inch negatives. With no horizon line, the vast expanses of sand and water offer a strangely disorienting view. From their vertiginous perch, the images evoke awe, astonishment, as well as a sense of unease intended by the artist.

As Misrach explains, "The photographs that appear in On the Beach were made between January 2002 and November 2005. My thinking was influenced by the events of 9/11, as well as by the 1950s Cold War novel and film, On the Beach. I was drawn to the fragility and grace of the human figure in the landscape. For me, the work is both a celebration of our survival and an elegy. Paradise has become an uneasy dwelling place; the sublime sea frames our vulnerability, the precarious nature of life itself."

On the Beach: Photographs by Richard Misrach was initiated by the Art Institute of Chicago.

The presentation of the exhibition at The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, is sponsored by Cherye and Jim Pierce, with in-kind support provided by Horizon Lines, LLC.