Notations

Photography did not invent black and white imagery, but it certainly proliferated it so widely that when color was introduced into the medium, it seemed almost unnatural. With his new work, Richard Misrach seems determined to renew that sense of the unknown, to revive the idea that color is unreliable, artificial. But he is careful not to endanger its gravity. It’s a delicate balance to strike.
Nancy Princenthal, Art in America

Ansel Adams, classical pianist and renowned photographer, compared the photographic negative to a musical score that can be interpreted/printed in many ways. John Cage, the avant-garde composer, compiled scores from many composers and artists and presented them as graphic art in the 1969 publication Notations. It is the fusion of these two ideas, these unlikely sources, that forms the basis of this project. Since 2006, coinciding with Richard Misrach’s switch from film to a digital camera, he has been interested in the negative image of photography as an aesthetic experience in its own right. This work, this book, is a tribute to the end of the silver era of photography.