Since 2006, coinciding with his shift away from analog film to working exclusively with a digital camera, Richard Misrach has been exploring the aesthetic possibilities of the negative image. His latest body of work, debuted in this deluxe, oversize (16.75 by 13 inches), landscape-format volume, comprises dazzling, sublime photographs of landscapes and natural scenes―in negative, but using color with great dexterity and nuance.
Inspired by Ansel Adams’ comparison of the photographic negative to a musical score, and John Cage’s 1969 book, Notations, which compiles music scores as art, Misrach here envisages the photographic image as a score-like negative, teetering on abstraction, that invites a diversity of interpretations. The result is a series of immense beauty unlike any previous Misrach publication.