Battleground Point #22 Possibly 1999 - 2001

Curator: Richard Misrach, the artist behind this ethereal image, might have captured "Battleground Point #22" sometime between 1999 and 2001. Editor: Immediately, I'm struck by the duality here—the almost perfect mirroring. It creates this sense of serene displacement, as if the weight of the desert landscape is effortlessly floating. Curator: Displacement, yes! Misrach often explores zones where human activity—often military or industrial—intersects with the natural world. Though, here, the point of "battle" feels almost...meditative. Editor: Exactly! It begs the question: is this untouched nature or a landscape irrevocably altered by extraction and modification? It is created using C-print photography. The tones make me think of what may be required to get raw material to produce a high end image, which circles us back to the topic of resource and production and the hidden labor in art creation. Curator: And there's such a delicacy in the execution; it's almost a watercolor, a mirage painted with light, tricking the eye with simplicity. Editor: I wonder about the physical labor involved in lugging camera equipment into remote locations, too. Photographing these scenes must have demanded significant logistical effort. The final print is quite large so the gear, I suspect, would have had to be equally big to facilitate such large-scale pieces. Curator: Certainly no small feat, it required intense dedication. In this series he creates images as both stark documentations and almost painterly explorations of texture and form. I feel drawn into both a sociopolitical and emotional place by turns, viewing the same artwork. Editor: I agree. There is something both soothing and disquieting at play. In this liminal space there seems to be beauty in consumption or alongside it. That in itself causes internal discord when viewing this. Curator: It’s a reminder, isn't it, that beauty and destruction can often be two sides of the same coin. Misrach doesn’t offer easy answers. Editor: He just shows us the world, the materials within it and how those materials come to form the things around us. Food for thought for certain!