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172

RICHARD MISRACH (American, b. 1949) CLOUD #5

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RICHARD MISRACH (American, b. 1949) CLOUD #5
RICHARD MISRACH (American, b. 1949) CLOUD #5 "Cloud #5, 9/10, 1978/1993, Fujicolor print, Richard Misrach" inscribed by the artist on verso chromogenic color print 38 x 48 in. (96.5 x 122 cm) 1987 this print is number 9 from an edition of 10 from the DESERT CANTOS (CANTO XII: THE CLOUDS) series PROVENANCE Fraenkel Gallery, SAN FRANCISCO Private Collection, LOS ANGELES LITERATURE Anne Wilkes Tucker, CRIMES AND SPLENDORS: THE DESERT CANTOS OF RICHARD MISRACH, Boston, 1996, pl. 138 (illustrated) As Richard Misrach gradually developed his series of DESERT CANTOS, he turned his camera from the earth to the heavens, producing a sequence of cloud photographs in the late 1980s. Officially categorized as CANTO XII: THE CLOUDS (NON-EQUIVALENTS), these pictures pay homage to Alfred Stieglitz, who famously photographed clouds in the 1920s and labeled them EQUIVALENTS. Unlike Stieglitz, Misrach does not convey abstract emotions through these clouds, but seeks to document yet another concrete element of the modern desert landscape. Indeed, the present work captures the leaden weight of a desert sky just before a storm. Tinged with shades of violet, these clouds appear both beautiful and menacing, natural and artificial. "Our delight in the beauty of the clouds is slowly undermined by the realization that the dense clouds, which so dramatically reflect sunsets, are toxic beauties laden with poisonous, but highly reflective, pollutants. Rather than the physical land invasions documented in other cantos, The Clouds represent the menacing invisibility and unbounded access of chemical pollution in the atmosphere, its poisonous effects unmitigated by the spectacular disguise of cloud forms" (Anne Wilkes Tucker, "A Problem of Beauty," CRIMES AND SPLENDORS: THE DESERT CANTOS OF RICHARD MISRACH, exh. cat., Houston: The Museum of Fine Arts, 1996, p. 31).
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