Richard Misrach at the High Museum of Art Atlanta

Revisiting the South: Richard Misrach's Cancer Alley

June 2 - October 7, 2012

Hazardous Waste Containment Site, Dow Chemical Corporation, Mississippi River, Plaquemine, LA. © Richard Misrach

In 1998, the High commissioned California-based photographer Richard Misrach to create a body of work as part of the Museum’s Picturing the South series.  Misrach studied the ecological degradation of a passage of the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. This is an area where a number of petro-chemical industries are based and which is sometimes referred to as Cancer Alley.  Like the Western landscapes for which Misrach is best known, these photographs challenge viewers with environmental and political concerns while seducing them with evocative and lyrically beautiful large scale prints.  In focusing on the delicate state of the Mississippi River, Misrach’s work signals not just the environmental challenges facing the South but also the larger costs of our modern world at the dawn of the twenty first century.
  
To mark the culmination and publication of this body of work in 2012, more than a decade after the project was initiated, a group of twenty-one large scale prints are presented here.  This is the first time that many of these important photographs have been shown to a broad public.  Color photography pioneer Richard Misrach will discuss his enduring interest in the Mississippi River landscape and his monumental photographs that document the environmental challenges of this beautiful region on Thursday June 7, 2012. Galleries open until 10 p.m.

For more information check out the High's website here.

The lecture is free and seating is limited. Tickets are available through the Woodruff Arts Center Box Office at 404-733-5000. Please note: tickets are limited to two per person. Save your ticket stub for a special opportunity to view the works in the exhibition following this program.