Richard Misrach has made photographs along the Mexican-American border since 2004, pictures of the landscape and objects left behind by migrants. The traveling exhibition Border Cantos / Sonic Border, with photographs by Misrach and sound-generating sculptures by Mexican-American sculptor and composer Guillermo Galindo, is on view through October 24 at the Asheville Art Museum. It’s the latest chapter in Misrach’s ongoing project Desert Cantos, a meditation on place and our complex relationship to it.
Misrach responded to five questions from photograph.
Name a photograph that brings you joy.
Any of my grandson.
Favorite photo book?
Diane Arbus: Documents. Extraordinary (!) new publication, published by David Zwirner Books and Fraenkel Gallery.
Last exhibition you saw?
Peter Hujar curated by Sir Elton John at Fraenkel Gallery [through October 22].
Favorite museum?
Every single one. In this current challenging moment, there is something crucial, heartening, and magical that happens looking at art in that special space we call a museum.
Favorite work of art that’s not a photograph?
Again, an impossible task to pick just one, but the Diego Rivera mural, entitled Pan American Unity, up at SFMOMA, is a current favorite.