Richard Misrach - 11.21.11 5: 40 PM

An artist’s book placing photographs of distant figures in conversation with photographs taken concurrently by the photograph’s subjects

In the early 2000s, Richard Misrach (born 1949) began a series titled On the Beach, a body of work that traveled extensively and has been highly influential. These color photographs deal with the human figure seen at a distance, on an unspecified beach or in the water, observed from an unsettling and difficult-to-identify point of view located high above. Misrach has continued this work, while vast changes in photographic technology over the intervening decade have caused a shift in approach, both conceptually and technically. Untitled is an artist book based on two photographs: the one made by Misrach and the other made concurrently, at the time of exposure, by the subjects of his photograph. The extreme detail explored in this work concisely summates both the artist’s concerns and the ubiquity of digital technology as we are portrayed and portray ourselves.