Richard Misrach

CARGO

Past
Jan 17 – Mar 1, 2025
New York

Pace is pleased to present an exhibition of recent photographs by Richard Misrach at its 540 West 25th Street gallery in New York. On view from January 17 to March 1, 2025, this will be the first presentation devoted to CARGO, a body of work that Misrach began in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the last week of the show, advance copies of CARGO (Aperture, May 2025) will be available to view at the gallery. Pace will also host a talk between the artist and Sarah Meister, Executive Director of Aperture.

Misrach is known for his poignant, large-scale color images that lean into social, political, and environmental issues while also engaging with the history of photography. In his radiant, contemplative works, Misrach—who is based in California—often examines the destructive impact of human interaction with the natural world. His works have examined man-made fires and floods, nuclear test sites, and animal burial pits in the American West; the petrochemical corridor in Louisiana; the landscape of the US-Mexico border; as well as more lyrical subjects like San Francisco’s iconic Golden Gate Bridge and his recent hydrofoil surfer series in Hawaii.

Harkening back to his Golden Gate Bridge series—which the artist produced from his front porch over the course of four years beginning in 1997—CARGO centers on the light, water, and weather of the San Francisco Bay. He began creating this body of work in 2021 amid the pandemic and its attendant lockdowns. Captured at different times of day from a single location in San Francisco, these photographs speak to his enduring interest in bearing witness to the world around him from a singular vantage point over the course of months or years.

In a statement, Misrach describes this series as a meditation on and celebration of the setting of the San Francisco Bay. With these works, he also contemplates the design, function, and history of the ships in the bay, and all of the thousands of workers implied in the images.

“Behind these ships, there is a remarkable—if invisible—global workforce that builds them, and inhabits them, that packs and unloads them, that maneuvers them over oceans and canals, sometimes in dangerous situations, toward their eventual berths,” Misrach writes. “Along with the extraordinary achievement and value these cargo ships symbolize, they also represent the complex, challenging side of our critical, intertwined, international commerce. In this historical moment, they allude to the threat that is global warming.”

Sarah Meister, Richard Misrach, and Xin Wang

Pace Live

CARGO

A Conversation with Richard Misrach and Sarah Meister, Moderated by Xin Wang

Pace Live is pleased to present a conversation between photographer Richard Misrach and Sarah Meister, Executive Director of Aperture, on the occasion of CARGO at Pace’s New York gallery. In their conversation—moderated by Pace’s Curatorial Director Xin Wang—Misrach and Meister will discuss CARGO, the artist’s process, and more. Aperture’s new monograph on the artist’s CARGO series, Richard Misrach: Cargo, will be released in May.

Learn More & RSVP

Cargo Ships (January 18, 2024 10:18 am) by Richard Misrach

Cargo Ships (January 13, 2022 5:25 pm) by Richard Misrach

Cargo Ships (January 11, 2022 5:02 pm) by Richard Misrach

Cargo Ships (November 8, 2021 7:31 am) by Richard Misrach

Cargo Ships (February 1, 2024 7:53 am) by Richard Misrach

Cargo Ships (July 6, 2024 6:36 am) by Richard Misrach

Cargo Ships (September 29, 2023 8:49 am) by Richard Misrach

Cargo Ships (December 3, 2023 6:55 am) by Richard Misrach

Cargo Ships (May 14, 2021 7:19 pm) by Richard Misrach

Cargo Ships (November 14, 2023 6:56 am) by Richard Misrach

Cargo Ships (December 19, 2023 7:50 am) by Richard Misrach

Cargo Ships (December 16, 2023 9:11 am) by Richard Misrach

Cargo Ships (January 16, 2024 7:03 am) by Richard Misrach

Richard Misrach portrait_photo by Myriam Misrach.jpg — Richard Misrach © Myriam Misrach

About the Artist

Richard Misrach is considered one of the most influential photographers of his generation, instrumental in pioneering the use of color photography and large-scale format in the 1970s. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1971 with a BA in Psychology. For over 50 years, Misrach has photographed the dynamic landscape of the American West through an environmentally aware and politically astute lens. His visually seductive, large-scale color vistas powerfully document the devastating ecological effects of human intervention, industrial development, nuclear testing and petrochemical pollution on the natural world.

Learn More

Exhibition Details

Richard Misrach
CARGO
Jan 17 – Mar 1, 2025

GALLERY

540 West 25th Street
New York

PRESS

Press Release

CONNECT

(opens in a new window) @pacegallery

Journal

View All

Richard Misrach

CARGO

Pace Live

CARGO

A Conversation with Richard Misrach and Sarah Meister, Moderated by Xin Wang

Checklist

About the Artist

Exhibition Details

GALLERY

PRESS

CONNECT

Journal

Richard Misrach Prints to Support LA Wildfire Relief

Richard Misrach Prints to Benefit Maui United Way

Art21 Presents "Richard Misrach: Never the Same"

Richard Misrach on view in "Living for the City" at MoMA