Amon Carter print details

Flooded Snack Bar, Salton Sea

Richard Misrach (b. 1949)

Object Details

  • Date

    1984, printed 1985

  • Object Type

    Photographs

  • Medium

    Dye coupler print

  • Dimensions

    Image: 18 5/16 x 21 1/8 in.
    Sheet: 20 x 24 in.

  • Edition

    4/25

  • Inscriptions

    Print recto:

    signed l.r.: Richard Misrach 1984 \ p 85

    inscribed: 4/25 FLOODED SNACK BAR, SALTON SEA

  • Credit Line

    Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas

  • Accession Number

    P1986.20

  • Copyright

    © Richard Misrach, Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

Object Description

Misrach’s most significant project, Desert Cantos, investigates deserts as sites of the complicated and sometimes antagonistic relationship between humans and the environment, drawing the viewer into consideration of the darker realities behind often stunning images. In this case, he finds a quiet beauty of pastel tones, watery reflections, and glowing light at the site of what has been called “the biggest environmental disaster in California history.”

For millions of years this low-lying area alternated between a freshwater lake, when the Colorado River emptied into it, and a desert basin, when the river ran to the Gulf instead. But beginning in 1905, decades of irrigation, canal, and dam projects led first to a thriving tourist area and then to a catastrophic environmental situation. Now the Salton Sea is twice as salty as the Atlantic Ocean, resulting in mass wildlife die-offs and bacterial and algae blooms; as the sea shrinks, toxic particulates are exposed that the wind then blows across the region.

—Text taken from the Carter Handbook (2023)

Additional details

Location: Off view
W28-artist-CMYK-CarterBlack
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