Outdoor Dining, Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah Possibly 1992 - 1995

Richard Misrach made this photograph, "Outdoor Dining, Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah," out in the landscape with a camera. The photograph feels like an invitation into a stage set. The colour palette is muted and dream-like, the tables and chairs in the foreground are arranged in an orderly fashion as if waiting for guests. There is a strange contrast here, between the flat and featureless plane of the flats and the cluster of objects that have been placed there. The texture and colour of the ground and sky create a kind of tension, which the chairs only serve to heighten. It is as if they have been abandoned, or are waiting for something that may never arrive. There is a stillness to the photograph, that is similar to the work of the new topographic photographers. As with their images, the artist asks us to contemplate the relationship between humanity and its surroundings. The conversation is open, and as viewers, it is up to us to engage with the scene.