Richard Misrach
American, born 1949
Playboy #38
INV-1211
Richard Misrach
American, born 19491990
Playboy #38
Richard Misrach American, born 1949 →chromogenic color printphotographic process
Date
1990
Medium
Chromogenic print
Dimensions
Image/paper: 126 × 99 cm (49 5/8 × 39 in.); Frame: 129.7 × 104.7 × 4.7 cm (51 1/8 × 41 1/4 × 1 7/8 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of Boardroom, Inc.
For over 30 years, Richard Misrach has been producing an epic photographic poem on the American West, divided (in the manner of Dante or Ezra Pound) into sections called cantos. The Desert Cantos examines the places where civilization runs up against nature, with often-disastrous effects on the land. One section focuses on two Playboy magazines Misrach found near the Nevada Nuclear Test Site, propped up against a gutted television and used for shooting practice by locals. Although the women on the covers had been the intended targets, Misrach realized that the bullets had pierced many aspects of contemporary culture: not only centerfold models but also political figures like Oliver North and Gloria Steinem; celebrities such as Madonna, Ray Charles, and Dennis Quaid; advertisements for alcohol, cigarettes, and shampoo; and, as shown here, art-world personalities like Andy Warhol. Such imagery becomes, in Misrach’s enlarged photographs, emblematic of an American culture riddled with violence.
Also notable
Works in the same vein
Desert Fire #153 (Man with Rifle), from the series, "Desert Cantos IV: The Fires" (1983-85)
Richard Misrach American, born 1949
Desert Croquet #1 (Deflated World), from the series "Desert Cantos VIII: The Event II"
Richard Misrach American, born 1949
Dead Fish, Salton Sea, from the series "Desert Cantos III: The Flood"
Richard Misrach American, born 1949
