Synopsis
Richard Misrach, one of today's most prolific contemporary masters, is internationally renowned for his carefully considered, beautifully rendered epic works. In On the Beach, a lavishly produced, oversized monograph that features the long-awaited publication of this spectacular series, Misrach hones in on our delicate relationship to the sea.
Light, color, and form are crucial components in Misrach's explorations of difficult subjects. In this body of work he uses a gorgeous, slowly shifting color palette gleaned from changes in depth and tide; abstract patterns of waves and rippling water, and beaches both empty and cluttered. Throughout the series, Misrach carefully balances the minutiae of human gesture against the massive scale of the sea. In some images, a lone figure floats in a liquid field of brilliant turquoise--or in others, lies beached and partially buried. The details in the images are frequently ambiguous. Are the figures relaxed or drained of life? Cavorting in the surf or panicking in the riptide? The balance is a fragile one between control and surrender to the elements. As Misrach says, the work is "suffused with a sense of the sublime, but it also begins to expose our vulnerability and fragility as human beings."
At 20 x 16 inches, On the Beach is the largest book ever published by Aperture, and also the first major publication of new work by Misrach in many years. It accompanies a major touring exhibition, with stops in Chicago, Honolulu, Seattle and at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.--a venue that very rarely shows the work of living artists.
Review
"The frequently stunning images in On The Beach resist easy categorisation... Neither wholly documentary nor art, his photographs derive their richness from the ambiguities, the complexities and the subtleties of their fusion of moral content, aesthetic quality and historical contingency." -- Guy Lane --Foto8
"On The Beach is a lavishly produced, oversized monograph that features our delicate relationship with the ocean." --Photo District News
"His gull's-eye views of beach and shimmering blue water, intricately textured swathes of color punctuated by the forms of solitary swimmers and sunbathers, are collected in On the Beach, a stunningly vibrant visual meditation on 'the precarious nature of life itself.'" --O: The Oprah Magazine
"...there is a menacing grandeur about his new series of pictures, all shot at an unnamed beach, all relentless in highlighting the smallness and fragility of the human form, splashing, swimming, lying on the sand... the images evoke a sense of anxiety, but they are also masterpieces of color and dreamy abstraction, of shifting light and changing moods." -- Luke Barr --Travel + Leisure
"The images reveal abstract patterns of waves and rippling water, and beaches both empty and cluttered. Misrach's photographs carefully balance the minutiae of human gesture against the massive scale of the sea and the details in these images are frequently ambiguous. The balance is a fragile one between control and surrender to the elements." --Flak Photo blog
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