Indestructible Wonder, April 18, 2016 - January 29, 2017, Second Floor, Central and North Galleries, San José Museum of Art.

Variations on a Theme, May 23, 2009 - February 7, 2010, New Wing, Second Floor, Central Skylight Gallery, San José Museum of Art. (Included in Part II: August 1, 2009-February 7, 2010.)

Richard Misrach: In the Bigger Picture, September 28, 2008 - December 21, 2008, Palo Alto Art Center, Palo Alto, CA.

Contemporary Art from the Permanent Collection, July 30, 2007 - September 9, 2007, San José Museum of Art.

Is the Medium the Message?: Contemporary Art from the Permanent Collection, March 2, 2002 - June 2, 2002, New Wing, Metro A, Skylight and South Galleries, Second Floor, San José Museum of Art.

Into the 21st Century: Selections from the Permanent Collection, May 22 -September 12, 1999, Second floor, New Wing, San José Museum of Art.

Indestructible Wonder (2016-2017)

Richard Misrach traverses the deserts of the American West in search of locations where civilization and nature collide. Though he follows in the tradition of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, whose twentieth-century landscapes are as much about the beauty of nature as they are about the politics of land use, Misrach (a pioneer of large-format color photography in the 1970s) deals with color and scale to envelope his viewers in a gorgeous visual language that conveys the social, political, and ecological issues of our time.

In the spring of 1983, Misrach witnessed an unexplainable fire in a grove of palm trees near Palm Springs, California. This experience inspired “The Fires” canto—a section of the photographer’s ongoing series “The Desert Cantos”—in which Misrach addressed the phenomenon of flash fires that can be either natural or man-made. In Desert Fire #248, the photographer captured a controlled burn of alfalfa fields—a cost-effective and environmentally friendly method of eliminating unwanted insects and weeds.


Variations on a Theme (2009-2010)

Richard Misrach’s work reveals a deep concern for the contemporary social and political issues of the artist’s time. Although the stunning appearance of his allegorical photographs sometimes masks their political intent, references to human development and environmental exploitation are always hidden beneath their surfaces. According to art critic Dave Hickey, Misrach employs “the traditional ‘look’ of the glamorous beaux-arts nature-picture tradition, creating exquisite, well-composed pictures of a landscape that is anything but balanced and eternal.” The lessons we learn from these photographs depend on our willingness to look beyond their compelling beauty, for embedded in Misrach’s poetic views are the complex and controversial histories of land use and abuse.

This object was included in the following exhibitions:

• Into the 21st Century: Selections from the Permanent Collection , 5/22/1999 - 9/12/1999
• Is the Medium the Message?: Contemporary Art from the Permanent Collection , 3/2/2002 - 6/2/2002
• Variations on a Theme San Jose Museum of Art , 5/23/2009 - 2/7/2010

• Image Dimensions: 40 x 50 in. (101.6 x 127 cm)

This object has the following bibliographic references:

• Selections: The San Jose Museum of Art Permanent Collection. Selections: The San Jose Museum of Art Permanent Collection San Jose Museum of Art. San Jose, CA, 2004
  Page Number: 152-153

This object is a member of the following portfolios: