Cargo Ships (November 22, 2021 6:41am), 2021
pigment print
© Richard Misrach, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

Written by Michael Galati

Since 2000, the world has been forced to reckon over and again with just how irrevocably interconnected it is. From 9/11 to the 2008 financial crisis to the pandemic in 2020, our realities have been shaped by the economic, social, and political side effects of a globalized economy and a continually shifting geopolitical landscape. Having only been on the receiving end of the impact of such a world, the whiplash of these reminders can dizzy our perceptions and paralyze our sense of time. But contemporary canonical photographer Richard Misrach has kept a wide-scope lens on the effects of such a world for the past fifty years. In his new series, Cargo, featured in the exhibition Richard Misrach: New Old Pictures/New New Pictures at Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco from June 29th to August 12th, Misrach captures the physical, ambient and figurative haziness of the maritime cargo industry on which the global supply chain depends. Also displaying archival photographs going back as far as 1984, the exhibition shows continuity and evolution in Misrach’s five-decade career and, much like the Cargo collection itself, invites inquiry into the development of our global world and ponders where it might go next.

Cargo Ships (January 11, 2022, 5:02 pm), 2022
pigment print
© Richard Misrach, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

What’s notable throughout this exhibition is Misrach’s use of light to both blend and distinguish the landscape from the subject and vice versa. The photos that comprise Cargo, which Misrach began shooting in 2021, were taken from the same position in San Francisco’s bay, looking south and east across the water. Taken at different points of the day and during different seasons, the sun and the lamp posts at the Port of Oakland provide the only sources of light in these images. As such, the time of day affects the viewing experience of the photos. In the above picture, taken at sunset, the sun shines from the foreground to the background, creating depth until the background disappears into a void-like haze. However, not only does the light add dimension, but the blending of the sunset into the horizon of the sea and the lighter coloring of the still water juxtaposed against the darkness of the moving water contrasts the stillness of the boats, which places the image in paralysis. The sky and the ocean become one as the boats float through an almost vacant space, as if reflecting the stasis and uncertainty of its industry.

Cargo Ships (January 14, 2022, 6:51 am), 2022
pigment print
© Richard Misrach, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

Misrach does something different with the lighting in the above picture. Instead of the light coming from the foreground, the light in this image comes from the background, as it was taken at sunrise. In Cargo Ships (January 14, 2022, 6:51 am), the boat’s darkness complements that of the mountains behind it, but there is a clear distinction between sky and ocean here. The darker coloring of the waves and the slightly off-center boat signals the image’s motion, opposite that of the first image. The impressive technique in both of these images is precisely that when the natural light source's position changes, the image's tone and viewing experience change as well even though they depict similar things.

Bandon Beach # 1, Oregon Coast, 2009
pigment print
© Richard Misrach, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

In fact, the combination of recent and archival photos in this exhibition shows that Misrach has been interested in this same lighting technique throughout his career. However, he uses light differently in his archival photos than he does in Cargo. Instead of using light to blend (even when he uses it to contrast), the light in his older photos tends to be a tool to counter the subject from the landscape sharply. In Bandon Beach # 1, Oregon Coast, taken in 2009, the backlighting distinguishes the flossy pink sky from the darker, earthier foreground. The focus here is clearly on the rock structure in the center of the photo, differentiated so boldly from the background that it looks photoshopped, as if to say it’s not a naturally occurring object. Misrach still uses light as a tool to create meaning, but the method is distinction as opposed to blending.

Film Crew, Battleground Point, 1999
pigment print
© Richard Misrach, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

In fact, patterns arise between images when you compare his archival photos to his newer ones. In Film Crew, Battleground Point from 1999, he uses the same lighting technique in Bandon Beach # 1 but slightly differently, reflecting the same slight change between the two images from Cargo. Another backlit image, Misrach uses the lighting in Film Crew to create contrast not through the presence and absence of light but through its full presence and reflection. Most of this image is lit, save for the area under the crests of the dunes. But the contrast comes from the inflection point where the light meets the water. The line where the reflection originates is visible towards the background, but the contrast between the water’s reflection and the earth falls away as the eye moves to the foreground, as if the fullness of the lights blinds the boundary between perception and reality. From these two older images, we can see a throughline in Misrach’s work of light manipulation, used in his early images to contrast and in his later work to blend. The light work connects the “new new pictures” with the “new old pictures,” even when their content or perspective is slightly different.

Gas Station Signs (With Moth Trails), Texas, 1991
pigment print
© Richard Misrach, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

Jarring the viewer back into reality and entering into a more overtly political tone, Gas Station Signs (With Moth Trails), 1991 shows Misrach in an entirely different arena than the naturalistic images featured both in Cargo and in the exhibition but still employing his skill in lighting technique. Gas Station Signs is an interesting choice for the exhibition as its sole light source is artificial and because it was taken in the dead of night. However, we can still see Misrach in this image: the distinction between light and its absence focuses the subject against the landscape. But returning to the central political question of Cargo, of what effects an unstable global supply chain or, for that matter, an unstable globalized economy, may do to a world is concentrated in this image. By contrasting the light from the darkness in such a way as to make the darkness darker and the lightness lighter than they actually are, all at the effect of an artificial light source, the threefold disparity between the price of gas in 1991 and that of today appears to be and feels suspended in space and time even though the reality of the political and economic situation in which this disparity unfolded has already played out. The fact that this effect is artificially generated is the point.

Misrach has created an exhibition that showcases his evolution as an artist: from one using light contrasts in more obvious ways to one whose techniques are more subtle, both equally breathtaking. The relationship between the foreground and the background is a continuity in his images, a theme that ponders how events beyond individual human control affect the individual, not questioning what could be done but questioning what is happening for the sake of understanding. Nature and artifice, industry, and manufacturing are often topics of discussion for Misrach, the former given preferential treatment and forcing the viewer to grapple with an increasingly mechanized world. Thus, in Richard Misrach: New Old Pictures/New New Pictures, not only are we able to experience the growth of an artist both thematically and technically, but how our world has changed over the past 50 years, for better or worse, in unexpected and unwieldy ways and places the subject in the center of the madness. It doesn’t figure the subject as an agent or a recipient of these events, but as one moving through the world on their own, as it changes around them. Despite the signature light manipulation techniques, these images may be more realist than they first appear.