BOOK FORMAT Hardcover, 17 x 13 in. / 80 pgs / 78 color.
PUBLISHING STATUS Pub Date 6/23/2015 No longer our product
DISTRIBUTION Contact Publisher Catalog:
PRODUCT DETAILS ISBN 9781597113274TRADE List Price: $80.00 CDN $95.00
AVAILABILITY Not Available
The sequel to Misrach’s hugely popular On the Beach
APERTURE
Richard Misrach: The Mysterious Opacity of Other Beings
Since the publication of Richard Misrach's bestselling and critically acclaimed publication On the Beach, he has continued to photograph at the same location, building a body of work that has been exhibited as On the Beach 2.0—a reference to the technological and optical developments that have made the intensely detailed, exquisitely rendered depictions possible. The Mysterious Opacity of Other Beings focuses less on the abstraction of water, sand and mote-sized figures, instead honing in on the gestures and expressions of bathers adrift in the ocean. Misrach has rarely ventured into portraiture; this work is his first to focus exclusively on the human figure. Each photograph features one or more individuals crisply rendered from a distance, as they seem to levitate among turquoise waves, isolated from everything save the shifting patterns of the ocean. There is ambiguity and a sense of the uncanny in the figures suspended in the water: are they approaching the shore or moving away from it? Each image is presented both as full frame and as a series of enlarged details that enable the viewer to linger on each individual's surrender of their body to the sea. Richard Misrach (born 1949) is one of the most influential color photographers of his generation. His work is held in the collections of over 50 major institutions, including The Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. The exhibit On the Beach traveled to several museums in 2004, including The Art Institute of Chicago; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and National Gallery of Art. In 2012 Misrach collaborated with Aperture to launch a book and exhibition titled Petrochemical America, a series of photographs that explores the health and environmental issues surrounding the Mississippi River industrial corridor, otherwise known as "Cancer Alley." Images from the project are featured in the Emmy-nominated title sequence of HBO's True Detective.
Featured image is reproduced from Richard Misrach: The Mysterious Opacity of Other Beings.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Essential Homme
Joshua Glass
Though lionized for his poignantly beautiful—often times painfully so—reflections of the American West, large scale color format pioneer, photographer Richard Misrach, turns his gaze to the sea for a second time in his new oversized visual monograph, “The Mysterious Opacity of Other Beings.” A follow-up to his best-selling “On the Beach,” the new book of photography continues where its predecessor left off, exploring the intermittently murky relationship between us that walk on land and the mysterious sea. but where his first release circles on the abstraction of water, the new publication meditates on the lost quiet of humans actually adrift in the ocean: floating, breathing, beating. Investigating this quiet portraiture of intimate surrender, Misrach dives in head first this May.
American Photo
Jack Crager
Misrach's forthcoming book, The Mysterious Opacity of Other Beings (Aperture, $80), presents "people pictures" in the form of swimmers interacting in the water, a seaward extension of his "On the Beach" series (a few of which are in this show). But much of his environmental imagery over the years has been unpeopled. The work in "Being(s)" seems to border the two, with the humans abstracted but recognizable, often alone.
Whether you're looking for the perfect gift for your host at the beach this weekend, or staying home with a book that offers a more stationary, purely aesthetic vacation, you cannot do better than Richard Misrach's The Mysterious Opacity of Other Beings. Releasing this week, just in time for Memorial Day weekend, this collection of large scale photographs is irresistibly transporting. Below are a selection of images, each of which is followed, as in the book, with a detail. continue to blog
From 2011 through 2014, photographer Richard Misrach shot dozens of leisurely swimmers from his balcony in a Honolulu hotel. Collected together in The Mysterious Opacity of Other Beings, Aperture's new, deluxe monograph, these, quiet, color-saturated photographs convey more than any other work we can think of the unique feeling of floating, outside of time, in the water, under the sun, alone, at peace, on vacation. Each spread of this oversized 17x13-inch book presents a full bleed image of the scoped back view, alongside a detail of the human figure or figures. Somehow this unique design conveys even more the "suspension and wonder" described by John Guida and Sara Barrett in The New York Times. To see a selection of images from the book, continue to our blog. continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 17 x 13 in. / 80 pgs / 78 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $80.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $95 ISBN: 9781597113274 PUBLISHER: Aperture AVAILABLE: 6/23/2015 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: No longer our product AVAILABILITY: Not Available
Richard Misrach: The Mysterious Opacity of Other Beings
Published by Aperture.
Since the publication of Richard Misrach's bestselling and critically acclaimed publication On the Beach, he has continued to photograph at the same location, building a body of work that has been exhibited as On the Beach 2.0—a reference to the technological and optical developments that have made the intensely detailed, exquisitely rendered depictions possible. The Mysterious Opacity of Other Beings focuses less on the abstraction of water, sand and mote-sized figures, instead honing in on the gestures and expressions of bathers adrift in the ocean. Misrach has rarely ventured into portraiture; this work is his first to focus exclusively on the human figure. Each photograph features one or more individuals crisply rendered from a distance, as they seem to levitate among turquoise waves, isolated from everything save the shifting patterns of the ocean. There is ambiguity and a sense of the uncanny in the figures suspended in the water: are they approaching the shore or moving away from it? Each image is presented both as full frame and as a series of enlarged details that enable the viewer to linger on each individual's surrender of their body to the sea.
Richard Misrach (born 1949) is one of the most influential color photographers of his generation. His work is held in the collections of over 50 major institutions, including The Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. The exhibit On the Beach traveled to several museums in 2004, including The Art Institute of Chicago; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and National Gallery of Art. In 2012 Misrach collaborated with Aperture to launch a book and exhibition titled Petrochemical America, a series of photographs that explores the health and environmental issues surrounding the Mississippi River industrial corridor, otherwise known as "Cancer Alley." Images from the project are featured in the Emmy-nominated title sequence of HBO's True Detective.
