id: 161791 accession number: 2001.128 share license status: Copyrighted url: https://clevelandart.org/art/2001.128 updated: 2023-04-25 11:42:56.717000 Swamp and Pipeline, Geismar, Louisiana, 1998. Richard Misrach (American, 1949-). Chromogenic process color print (printed 2001); image: 46.2 x 59 cm (18 3/16 x 23 1/4 in.); paper: 50.8 x 60.9 cm (20 x 24 in.); matted: 71.1 x 81.3 cm (28 x 32 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Friends of Photography 2001.128 title: Swamp and Pipeline, Geismar, Louisiana title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1998 creation date earliest: 1998 creation date latest: 1998 current location: creditline: Gift of Friends of Photography copyright: --- culture: America, 20th century technique: chromogenic process color print (printed 2001) department: Photography collection: PH - American 1951-Present type: Photograph find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Richard Misrach (American, 1949-) - artist Richard Misrach American, 1949- The photographs of Richard Misrach are meditations on power and beauty. From his early black-and-white documentation of 1970s Berkeley to his extensive nighttime studies of cacti and color Desert Cantos cycles, Misrach's subjects, photographed with careful attention to light and composition, are charged with sociopolitical overtones. For Bravo 20: The Bombing of the American West (1990), he collaborated with his wife, Miriam Weisang Misrach, to investigate the destruction of the desert in the name of military advance. Livestock killed by nuclear fallout, Playboy magazines riddled with bullet holes, portrait and landscape paintings from the hallowed halls of southwestern museums, each constitutes different Desert Cantos (1987). Begun in the early 1980s, this series was exhibited as a traveling retrospective, Crimes and Splendors: The Desert Cantos of Richard Misrach, organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, with accompanying catalogue (1996). Misrach's other monographs include Telegraph 3 a.m.: The Street People of Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, California (1974), (a photographic book) (1979), Richard Misrach: 1975-1987 (1988), and Violent Legacies: Three Cantos (1992). Born in Los Angeles, Misrach earned a B.A. in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley (1971). There he served on the photography staff of the Associated Students of the University of California (1971-77). He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1973, 1977, 1984), the Friends of Photography (1976), the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1979), and Eureka (1990). Misrach lives in Emeryville, California. A.W. --- measurements: Image: 46.2 x 59 cm (18 3/16 x 23 1/4 in.); Paper: 50.8 x 60.9 cm (20 x 24 in.); Matted: 71.1 x 81.3 cm (28 x 32 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: written in black marker on recto: "13/25 SWAMP AND PIPELINE, GEISMAR, LOUISIANA Richard Misrach [signed] 1998/2001 F." translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Gifts from the CMA Friends of Photography opening date: 2002-12-07T00:00:00 Gifts from the CMA Friends of Photography. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 7, 2002-April 23, 2003). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art; December 7, 2002 - April 23, 2003. "Gifts from the CMA Friends of Photography." --- PROVENANCE --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: Throughout his career, Richard Misrach has expressed his concern for the environment by juxtaposing the inherent beauty of his natural subjects with the destructive impact of humanity on the land. Having photographed different aspects of America's deserts for over twenty years, he is widely recognized for his body of work titled Desert Cantos. Although Misrach chose a totally different terrain for this composition-the wetlands of southern Louisiana-his message remains unchanged. In this intensely colored formal composition, an unsightly pipe bisects the swamp and blemishes the natural landscape, evoking an uneasy feeling about the substance it may carry. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS --- IMAGES