Untitled 2004
This artwork is called 'Flippers'
completed 2004 by Richard Misrach.
Here Misrach portray's an extract from a popular beach. People are in leisure; reclining and facing outwards to the sea as they bask in the sun. The picture plane is facing the viewer as he has used a direct aerial perspective that looks down at the people. The placement of people is semi unbalanced, yet the image contains a sharpness of liking about it. Aesthetically the chosen subject matter is good. It's revealing a time of leisure to the viewer and reminding us of where we should be. The instant thought of a 'HOLIDAY' corrupts the minds of the people who endlessly stare at the image of where they dream to go for a day at the beach. He presents a sublime landscape through the placement of his camera and the clear interaction of nature and man. this can be interpreted as man taking over the landscape; as the image distributes more than one figure covering the extract of the beach. In a lone image of containing one figure placed in a landscape, the determination of who is dominant would rely on the scale and compositional placement of that figure.
References:
In the beach series of work by Misrach, to him he positioned the people of the beach and the people diving in the water, like they have just fallen. He is referencing the twin towers 9/11 bombings and the cold war novel and book because what he found with those events was the peoples gestures whilst falling and how they were placed, like they have just fallen from space. In the picture of the many people in lying down it does look random and scattered like a war site how the people are laying down. I think he is very clever with the way he took these images from above because it shows distance and depth like you have said and also allows you to see (when read in to the point behind these images), the idea of what people look like when splattered. that was one of the meanings behind his work but also, it allows you to feel lost and isolated because you are so miniscule in this big wide world and it does show sublimity because it makes you think about how amazing and terrifying the world is for an example the ocean, in which he has used. In an interview he said that he surfs everyday for 2hrs and especially before he took these photographs and he even said how 'terrifying' the ocean is and what a thrill it is.
ReplyDeleteyour a genius with your writing sahrita!!