Yesterday I named “Petrochemical America” as one of Modern Art Notes’ best art books of 2012. Episode No. 46 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast featured both of the book’s authors: Photographer Richard Misrach and landscape architect Kate Orff (who was just named a United States Artists fellow). On the show, they detailed their experiences of Louisiana’s so-called Cancer Alley and how Misrach’s photographs of the area meshed with Orff’s informational graphics and designs. The book features great visual storytelling — and I think the story-telling Misrach and Orff brought to The MAN Podcast is pretty interesting too.
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In this month’s Modern Painters magazine (for whom I’m the columnist), I examine the recent trend of artists not just making art about topical, even newsy subjects, but presenting publications and books that explicitly place their work in the context of recent science and policy discussions.
One of the books I discuss is the new Richard Misrach-Kate Orff project “Petrochemical America,” a superb art + landscape architecture + design look at the petrochemical industry along Louisiana’s infamous Cancer Alley. The book is published by Aperture. Amazon lists it at $30 off.
Misrach and Orff were the guests on Episode No. 46 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast. To download the program to your PC/mobile device, click here. Subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes or RSS. See images of art discussed on the program here.
Image: Richard Misrach, Sugar Cane and Refinery, Mississippi River Corridor, 1998.
This entire series is in SFMOMA’s collection, and just about every picture is visible via SFMOMA’s online collection (!).
Check out this week’s MAN Podcast, featuring the great photographer Richard Misrach, whose series Destroy This Memory documented the devastation left in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Also, be sure to follow MAN Podcast on Tumblr to stay up-to-date with their latest episodes!
The artworks about Hurricane Katrina that have received the most attention were by Robert Polidori and Mark Bradford, but as affecting as those works are, it’s tough to beat the gut-punch of Richard Misrach’s “Destroy This Memory” project. “Destroy This Memory” was a book-published series of photographs that built a narrative around words that were spray-painted on houses, cars and just about everything else in New Orleans after the storm. I reviewed it in two parts on Modern Art Notes: Here and here. (Click through for many images from the series.) Misrach gave sets of the entire series to each of five museums: the National Gallery of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the New Orleans Museum of Art and the MFA Houston.
Misrach and I discussed the “Destroy This Memory” work at length on this week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast, which also spotlights Misrach’s return to Louisiana in “Petrochemical America,” a new book byMisrach and landscape architect Kate Orff. The book examines the industrialized Mississippi River corridor between Baton Rouge, La., and New Oreleans. The region is infamous for its density of petrochemical plants and for high rates of disease, particularly cancer.
“Petrochemical America” features Misrach’s pictures, commissioned by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and landscape architect Kate Orff’s Ecological Atlas, a series of narratives that establish a relationship between Misrach’s photographs, the region and man-made and ecological forces. An exhibition of Misrach’s and Orff’s work is on view now in the project room at Aperture’s New York gallery through October 6. Misrach’s ‘Cancer Alley’ pictures are on view at the High through October 7. (The book is also published by Aperture. Amazon lists it at $30 off.) This piece is part of Misrach’s ‘Desert Cantos’ series, selections from which are on view at New York’s Robert Mann Gallery through October 27.
To download the program to your PC/mobile device, click here. Subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes or RSS. See images of art discussed on the program here.
Richard Misrach is the lead guest on this week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast! On the program, he and landscape architect Kate Orff discuss their new book “Petrochemical America,” which features Misrach’s “Cancer Alley” series. (Click on the cover to expand.) Misrach’s pictures from the project are on view at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art through October 7, and Misrach’s pictures and Orff’s ‘Ecological Atlas’ are on view at Aperture in New York through October 6.
To download the program to your PC/mobile device, click here. Subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes or RSS. See images of art discussed on the program here.
For most of his career, Richard Misrach has been interested in showing man’s impact on the landscape of the American West. Typically his work starts with overpowering beauty, forces us to wonder, ‘What happened there?’ and then often leads to the viewer realizing that the beautiful thing is (or was) also destructive and damaging to the environment. In this photograph from SFMOMA’s collection, I don’t know why these palm trees are burning, but Misrach’s picture suggests the polluting hand of man has invaded the typically clear desert environment.
(SFMOMA also has a complete set of Misrach’s “Destroy the Memory” pictures about the way people in New Orleans responded to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. See here for more.)
Misrach’s investigation of man’s impact on the environment has also extended into the American South, particularly in the part of Louisiana known as ‘Cancer Alley.’ This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast spotlights “Petrochemical America,” a new book byMisrach and landscape architect Kate Orff. The book examines the industrialized Mississippi River corridor between Baton Rouge, La., and New Orleans. The region is infamous for its density of petrochemical plants and for high rates of disease, particularly cancer.
“Petrochemical America” features Misrach’s pictures, commissioned by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and landscape architect Kate Orff’s Ecological Atlas, a series of narratives that establish a relationship between Misrach’s photographs, the region and man-made and ecological forces. An exhibition of Misrach’s and Orff’s work is on view now in the project room at Aperture’s New York gallery through October 6. Misrach’s ‘Cancer Alley’ pictures are on view at the High through October 7. (The book is also published by Aperture. Amazon lists it at $30 off.)
To download the program to your PC/mobile device, click here. Subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes or RSS. See images of art discussed on the program here.
Image: Richard Misrach, Desert Fire #1, Burning Palms (detail), 1983. Collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
The artworks about Hurricane Katrina that have received the most attention were by Robert Polidori and Mark Bradford, but as affecting as those works are, it’s tough to beat the gut-punch of Richard Misrach’s “Destroy This Memory” project. “Destroy This Memory” was a book-published series of photographs that built a narrative around words that were spray-painted on houses, cars and just about everything else in New Orleans after the storm. I reviewed it in two parts on Modern Art Notes: Here and here. Click through for many images from the series.
Misrach and I discussed the “Destroy This Memory” work at length on this week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast, which also spotlights Misrach’s return to Louisiana in “Petrochemical America,” a new book byMisrach and landscape architect Kate Orff. The book examines the industrialized Mississippi River corridor between Baton Rouge, La., and New Oreleans. The region is infamous for its density of petrochemical plants and for high rates of disease, particularly cancer.
“Petrochemical America” features Misrach’s pictures, commissioned by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and landscape architect Kate Orff’s Ecological Atlas, a series of narratives that establish a relationship between Misrach’s photographs, the region and man-made and ecological forces. An exhibition of Misrach’s and Orff’s work is on view now in the project room at Aperture’s New York gallery through October 6. Misrach’s ‘Cancer Alley’ pictures are on view at the High through October 7. (The book is also published by Aperture. Amazon lists it at $30 off.) This piece is part of Misrach’s ‘Desert Cantos’ series, selections from which are on view at New York’s Robert Mann Gallery through October 27.
To download the program to your PC/mobile device, click here. Subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes or RSS. See images of art discussed on the program here.
For most of his career, Richard Misrach has been interested in showing man’s impact on the landscape of the American West. Sometimes his aesthetic strategy is beauty, sometimes it’s awe-and-shock. This picture, Shrapnel Bombs and School Bus (1987, detail) points out at how the U.S. military has used big patches of the American West as a bombing range. This James Crumley story in the Los Angeles Times tells the remarkable story of Misrach’s interaction with the land around Shrapnel.
This week’s MAN Podcast spotlights “Petrochemical America,” a new book byMisrach and landscape architect Kate Orff. The book examines the industrialized Mississippi River corridor between Baton Rouge, La., and New Oreleans. The region is infamous for its density of petrochemical plants and for high rates of disease, particularly cancer.
“Petrochemical America” features Misrach’s pictures, commissioned by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and landscape architect Kate Orff’s Ecological Atlas, a series of narratives that establish a relationship between Misrach’s photographs, the region and man-made and ecological forces. An exhibition of Misrach’s and Orff’s work is on view now in the project room at Aperture’s New York gallery through October 6. Misrach’s ‘Cancer Alley’ pictures are on view at the High through October 7. (The book is also published by Aperture. Amazon lists it at $30 off.) This piece is part of Misrach’s ‘Desert Cantos’ series, selections from which are on view at New York’s Robert Mann Gallery through October 27.
To download the program to your PC/mobile device, click here. Subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes or RSS. See images of art discussed on the program here.
Image: Richard Misrach, Shrapnel Bombs and School Bus, 1987.
This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast spotlights “Petrochemical America,” a new book by artist Richard Misrach and landscape architect Kate Orff. The book examines the industrialized Mississippi River corridor between Baton Rouge, La., and New Oreleans. The region is infamous for its density of petrochemical plants and for high rates of disease, particularly cancer.
In this detail from Ashland-Belle Helene Plantation, Acquired by Shell Chemical, Geismar, Louisiana (1998), Misrach presents one of a number of examples of how the excesses of the petrochemical industry has forced Louisianans to abandon towns, homes or, in this case, other engines of economic activity. Ashland Plantation was both a tourist attraction and a frequent host to film and television productions.
“Petrochemical America” features Misrach’s pictures, commissioned by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and landscape architect Kate Orff’s Ecological Atlas, a series of narratives that establish a relationship between Misrach’s photographs, the region and man-made and ecological forces. An exhibition of Misrach’s and Orff’s work is on view now in the project room at Aperture’s New York gallery through October 6. Misrach’s ‘Cancer Alley’ pictures are on view at the High through October 7. (The book is also published by Aperture. Amazon lists it at $30 off.)
To download the program to your PC/mobile device, click here. Subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes or RSS. See images of art discussed on the program here.
This week’s Modern Art Notes Podcast spotlights “Petrochemical America,” a new book by artist Richard Misrach and landscape architect Kate Orff. The book examines the industrialized Mississippi River corridor between Baton Rouge, La., and New Oreleans. The region is infamous for its density of petrochemical plants and for high rates of disease, particularly cancer.
In this detail from View of Exxon Refinery, State Capitol, Baton Rouge, Louisiana (1998), Misrach shows how close to Louisiana power Exxon sits. Misrach’s “Cancer Alley” pictures are full of similar juxtapositions between power and industry.
“Petrochemical America” features Misrach’s pictures, commissioned by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and landscape architect Kate Orff’s Ecological Atlas, a series of narratives that establish a relationship between Misrach’s photographs, the region and man-made and ecological forces. An exhibition of Misrach’s and Orff’s work is on view now in the project room at Aperture’s New York gallery through October 6. Misrach’s ‘Cancer Alley’ pictures are on view at the High through October 7. (The book is also published by Aperture. Amazon lists it at $30 off.)
To download the program to your PC/mobile device, click here. Subscribe to The Modern Art Notes Podcast via iTunes or RSS. See images of art discussed on the program here.
