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CORVALLIS, Ore. –  Photographer Richard Misrach will speak at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 20 at Oregon State University as part of the School of Arts & Communication’s Visiting Artists and Scholars Lecture Series.

The talk, “Forty Years of Photography” will be held in Room 128 at the Learning Innovation Center (LInC), 165 S.W. Sackett Pl., Corvallis. A reception with the artist will be held at 5 p.m. on the first floor of Fairbanks Hall, located near the LInC building at 220 S.W. 26^th St.

For four decades, Misrach has been a significant and influential photographer of the American landscape. Known as a pioneer of the 1970s renaissance of color photography and large scale presentation that are still practiced today, Misrach is also known for the monumental epic, “Desert Cantos,” a multifaceted study of people’s political, cultural and environmental relationship to the natural world.

In his talk, Misrach will provide a general overview of the last 40 years of work with an emphasis on several recent series. He will speak about Border Cantos, his collaboration with composer Guillermo Galindo, a major undertaking focusing on the U.S. - Mexico border, and his two current projects about the election.

Desert Canto XXXVIII: Premonitions (2009-2016) is comprised of previously unpublished work from the Barack Obama presidency that in hindsight suggests the atmosphere that led to the Trump election. Desert Canto XXXIX: The Writing On The Wall (2017-) is an election-engendered dialogue in graffiti form between various political factions, scribbled on abandoned buildings and remote landscapes throughout the desert Southwest. Selections from both projects are being debuted at the Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco in July 2018, but he will be presenting a larger group for the first time during his talk at OSU.

Misrach has had solo exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Centre Georges Pompidou, among others, and his work is held in museum collections around the world.

Misrach’s talk is being presented in conjunction with the Society of Photographic Educators’ Northwest Regional Conference taking place on the OSU campus October 20-21. For more information on the Society of Photographic Educators Northwest Regional Conference, go to: https://www.spenational.org/conferences/illuminate-provoke-spe-nw-2017

The Visiting Artists and Scholars Lecture series brings world-renowned artists and scholars to the OSU campus to interact with students in the art department so they can learn what is required of a professional artist or scholar. For more information, visit http://bit.ly/2dVv5kW and https://fraenkelgallery.com/artists/richard-misrach.