ABSTRACT
In the mid-nineteenth century, the wilderness of the American West was viewed as ‘virgin territory’, ripe for conquest and exploitation. Environmentalists acknowledge inter-dependence of urban and rural areas, viewing demands on natural resources made by human settlement as threatening the sustainability of wilderness regions. San Francisco-based photographer, Richard Misrach, is known internationally for his Nuclear Landscapes shot in the Nevada desert. His interest in plants, water, and the night-time environment of the American West, as well as his studies of the effects of light or the movement of clouds, for instance, on the Golden Gate, San Francisco, is likewise widely respected. Misrach's engagement with the politics of land use, specifically military uses and the consequence of military presence in the Nevada desert, sometimes seems incidental to his priorities as an artist.
