I felt it was worth taking a longer look at this work by Misrach & Orff, previously referenced by me and our Anthropocene landscape text.
Firstly this is the first complete representation of Misrach’s series taken down chemical alley, a loose collection of roads along the Mississippi where over 100 petrochemical plants co-exist with rural habitations, creating much pollution and high incidences of various diseases.
Orff’s work provides extensive context for the images and I was interested in if/how this works.
The book begins with a satellite image of the area showing the location of Misrach’s plates. Gradually more detailed line mapping also “sites” the location in the world for the reader.
However, a “design process” image was strangely uninformative and is an early sign of a possible issue with Orff’s contribution…
However the plates form the bulk of the first part of the book. Famous images such as his Narco Cloud are here, although certainly a number of the other images are not in this league. It’s interesting to compare some – for example the blown highlights behind the tour guide on the porch of Oak Alley Plantation, seemingly inexpertly handled in the darkroom, let the picture down whereas another tour guide image at Nottoway uses the window light effectively as a metaphor:
Similarly photographs of buildings not quite squared up properly (which is as I understand relatively straight forward with a large format camera) come up short for me – more displacement (but maybe not as much as Winogrand) may invoke reality although complete, unnerving symmetry is perhaps best – something that Misrach uses later in the book:
The way context is used is also interestingly – often it is extensive and necessary, for example the famous Narco cloud which would just be taken for a cloud and not the permanent pollution it is. In the image above the title is sufficient – enough to make you notice the helicopter if you have not done so already, and then to explain why it is there. But the ominous symmetry alerts you in advance to something not being right.
Where there is no further context the image really does need to communicate – so for example an image of sugar cane (p.48) does not really do this, whereas combining it with a refinery on the following page has more impact. Sometimes leaving out context for effect might work better – for example the roadside cow, where the surreal, like a joke, perhaps loses its sparkle when it is explained? Sometimes the bare facts are raw enough to paint a picture on their own – even the image could be left out?
It is perhaps no coincidence that the famous images work best for me, and the ones that were left out of previous representations of the series seem weak. A collection of church images about 1/4 of the way in seems clumsy, for example. The image edit for the book was apparently done by Orff, not Misrach, which might explain the different approach.
The series is ended well and appropriately, however, with a sort of mustard-yellow sunset, an appropriation of a clichéd finish that is loaded with meaning. This does raise an interesting question as to the colour balance of the book – the well-known image of the Dow Chemical Hazardous Waste Containment Site in flood is also far warmer and more yellow (and actually much more effective) than the version in on Landscape and Meaning. You might expect the small images in the cheaper, latter book to suffer, although both are published by Aperture, although in fact the smaller and cooler image is much more alike to the representation on my calibrated screen of the Fraenkel Gallery website. So is this a deliberate shift? Either way it shows how colour conveys meaning (and not necessarily accuracy), particularly when it appears as a sort of metaphorical mist (or pollution cloud?).
Beyond this is a welcome postscript of more modern image from 2010 (including the cow above) which do fit well with the series as well as being additive. I was interested to see Misrach finding metaphor in a trolley in an an empty retail parking lot, similar to but also different from the way I have used this in the past in a shot from Kissimee (a kind of Disney backlot where tourists don’t usually go, subject of the film The Florida Project). Misrach retains the signature central object, more space which is effective here and the metaphorical mist. Mine uses red as a danger sign, present on the abandoned shoes, the shopping carts and sign, and the stop sign. Both use the parking lines to lead the eye through the image.
Moving on to Orff’s contribution in the second section of the book – I was very receptive to being wowed by an attempt to interweave expert scientific witness with fine art photography in an effective manner. However despite really wanting it to work it somehow did not quite achieve that.
Orff states that “This book is about how oil and petrochemicals have transformed the physical form and social dynamics of the American landscape” (Misrach & Orff, 2014:115) and goes on to introduce her method: “The Ecological Atlas aims to frame these issues and make them more legible by bridging art, research and action” (Misrach & Orff, 2014:115). A key question for me is whether in the attempt to balance art and research something is lost rather than gained.
Orff’s main visual tool she defines as the “throughline” – “a collaborative ecology of seeing” (Misrach & Orff, 2014:17). Throughlines can be maps, data narratives, eco-portraits – so some of these are familiar graphics and others Orff has created by combining photographs, maps, graphs, etc..
Sometimes this is very effective, and clever, but often it is actually quite confusing, and over-engineered. There is a lot happening on the page, which does not always work to make the point clearly. I have always been taught that trying to make more than 3 points on a presentation page (which these graphics effectively are) overwhelms the viewer, who will often only remember 2 in any case. To incorporate Misrach’s image it is often so small or irrelevant as to have been better left out as less of a constraint (such as the sunset image in From the Earth to the Sky). Far from unpacking Misrach’s work, Orff is in danger of overpacking the frame.
Not always though – for example Cypress Swamp (p.171) balances well for me, as does the map of Toxic Releases.
I confess I have never been a fan of mind maps – there are several elaborate ones here and as usual for me they are an attempt to marginally prettify data at considerable loss of clarity.
Worse still, occasionally the facts seemed wrong – for example a claim that the internal combustion engine was invented just before 1895 stood out to me, and a quick check shows this to be inaccurate. This then starts to throw a cloud (a kind of intellectual pollutant, if you will) over the work.
Nevertheless Orff’s contribution does repay careful study with a more detailed understanding of the complex network of issues. How the marshland is eroded by sea salt water that backs up contructed canal and pipe routes, for example. How the Native American Culture (and consequentially preserved landscape) was replaced first by plantations and then by petrochemical facilities creating a Modern American Culture based on oil and plastics that is pervasive and destructive. And how the trend to large, single-family dwellings in suburban areas is an inefficient use of resources.
Orff ends with a Glossary of Terms and Solutions – which aims I think to define terms for a dialogue and also to present ideas of a way out. This is all good as far as it goes. But then we come to a significant issue:
Who is the book for and what does it aim to achieve?
There is perhaps rather too much information for the more casual reader, although perhaps (even ignoring the errors) the scientific review adds weight to the fine art view even if the former is only glanced at. Perhaps the images entice the reader in, hoping they will spend time with the data and make changes accordingly. But such a campaign is quite subtle and long-winded – as before I wonder; if the required result is change are the energies best spent in this way? Similarly this is not an educational text that would be used by the serious student. Is it in danger of falling between two stools?
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
- Misrach, R. (1998) Tour Guide, Nottoway Plantation, White Castle, Louisiana. At: https://fraenkelgallery.com/portfolios/artist/misrach-richard#misrach-richard_PetrochemicalAmerica-6 (Accessed 14.6.2022)
- Misrach, R. (2010) Helicopter Returning From Deep Water Horizon Spill, Venice, Louisiana. At: https://fraenkelgallery.com/portfolios/artist/misrach-richard#misrach-richard_PetrochemicalAmerica-3 (Accessed 14.6.2022)
- Misrach, R. (2010) Shopping Cart, Tanger Factory Outlet Center, I-10, Gonzales, Louisiana. At: https://twitter.com/aperturefnd/status/1023961517534924801 (Accessed 14.6.2022)
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Misrach, R. & Orff, K. (2014) Petrochemical America. New York: Aperture
Level 3.1 Learning Log 
2 thoughts on “Petrochemical America”