CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 3/19/2022

Arcana presents Richard Misrach signing 'Notations'

Saturday, March 19, from 4–6 PM PST, Arcana: Books on the Arts presents photographer Richard Misrach signing copies of Notations, published by Radius Books. If you cannot attend, you may order a signed copy of the book to be picked up at the store or shipped to you after the event. Please place your order here!

Since 2006, coinciding with his shift away from analog film to working exclusively with a digital camera, Richard Misrach has been exploring the aesthetic possibilities of the negative image. His latest body of work, debuted in this deluxe, oversized, landscape-format volume collects dazzling, sublime photographs of landscapes and natural scenes— in negative — using color with great dexterity and nuance.

Inspired by Ansel Adams’ comparison of the photographic negative to a musical score, and John Cage’s 1969 book, Notations, which compiles music scores as art, Misrach here envisages the photographic image as a score-like negative, teetering on abstraction, that invites a diversity of interpretations. Published by Radius Books, and with a text by Darius Himes, the result is a series of immense beauty unlike any previous Misrach publication.

Richard Misrach (b. 1949) is one of the most influential photographers working today. For the past fifty years he has used visually stunning, large-scale color vistas to address human intervention on the natural world. His best known series, "Desert Cantos," consists of thirty-nine distinct and interrelated chapters about the western landscape - including "Border Cantos" made in collaboration with the experimental composer/sculptor Guillermo Galindo. Dealing with the unseen realities of the US-Mexico borderlands, this show, organized by the San Jose Museum of Art in 2016, and reconfigured by the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, has so far traveled to twelve museums. Other significant series include Misrach’s "Golden Gate" study of weather and light, his exploration of the polluted cancer alley of Louisiana, his haunting documentation of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and his aerial views of ocean and beach in Hawaii. A year-long exhibit of his early "Telegraph 3 A.M." series is currently on view at the Museum of Modern Art. He lives and works in Berkeley, California.

Richard Misrach Book Signing
Saturday, March 19: 4–6 PM PST
Arcana: Books on the Arts
8675 Washington Blvd
Culver City, CA 90232
Pre-order a signed copy here!