Untitled [New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, 2005] Possibly 2005 - 2010

Richard Misrach shot this image in 2005 in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. His eye isn’t about perfection. It feels like he’s showing us something urgent, something that just happened. The light is hard and unforgiving, casting a long shadow across the pale brickwork. You can almost feel the grit of the street and the weight of the tires piled up like discarded hopes. Look at the word ‘HELP’ scrawled on the roof. It’s raw, exposed, vulnerable. The image feels completely unfiltered. Misrach reminds me of someone like Dorothea Lange. I feel like both are not afraid to show us the tough stuff and there is a long tradition of that. It’s a reminder that art isn’t always about beauty and sometimes it’s about bearing witness.