Richard Misrach. Waiting for Death

Richard Misrach, Untitled, 2003, from the series “On the Beach,” 2002–05. Chromogenic print on paper, 71 x 113 1/2 inches.

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Richard Misrach’s series “On the Beach” (2002–05) shares its title with a 1957 post-apocalyptic novel by Nevil Shute about the aftermath of nuclear war. In 1959 director Stanley Kramer adapted the book for film—shooting in Australia and on the California coast, giving form to Shute’s story of people awaiting the arrival of deadly radiation. Shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Misrach took an 8 x 10 view camera to a Hawaiian beach and photographed unassuming sunbathers and swimmers from above, evoking human vulnerability at the edge of the vast ocean. Untitled (2003) is an aerial view of a lone human floating in an immeasurable body of water with no horizon nor shoreline in sight. As Misrach continued to work with this subject, photographing the same beach from the vantage of a hotel balcony, the complete isolation of the floating figure has become more metaphysical in the artist’s mind. His 2014 book of this later work, The Mysterious Opacity of Other Beings, borrows from Martin Heidegger’s philosophy on being to consider existential loneliness; as the artist has said, “we don’t actually understand anybody aside from ourselves.”¹