press release

APERTURE FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES

Trailer Home, Norco, , 1998, Richard Misrach (left) and Detail from Bigger, Farther, Filled with More Stuff, Kate Orff (right)

PETROCHEMICAL AMERICA: Project Room Photographs by Richard Misrach Throughlines by Kate Orff/SCAPE

Exhibition on view: Saturday, August 25–Saturday, October 6, 2012 Reception, exhibition walkthrough, and book signing: Friday, September 21, 2012, 6:00–8:00 pm

Petrochemical America, the September release from Aperture, represents a unique collaboration between photographer Richard Misrach and landscape architect Kate Orff. It brings into focus the industrialized landscape of the Corridor that stretches from Baton Rouge to —a place that first garnered attention as “Cancer Alley” because of unusually high reports of cancer and other diseases in the area. The Project Room exhibition reveals traces of their collaborative process and features Misrach’s haunting photographs of the region and Orff’s Ecological Atlas, a series of visual narratives, or “throughlines.” The dialogue between photograph and drawing begins to unpack complex economic and ecological forces that have shaped this landscape, mapping cycles of extraction and transformation from the scale of the neighborhood, to the region, to the globe. Ultimately, this joint enterprise offers an expansion of both disciplines and a richly researched and concretely visualized study of the petrochemical industry and American culture, which has become intricately intertwined with its output.

547 West 27th Street 4th Floor New York, NY 10001 212 505 5555 aperture.org

Petrochemical America: Project Room will travel to Look3 Festival of the Photograph, Charlottesville, Virginia, June 7–29, 2013; David Brower Center, Berkeley, , September 12, 2013–January 29, 2014; Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, California, fall 2014; and other venues to be announced. Also on view is Revisiting the South: Richard Misrach’s Cancer Alley: June 2–October 14, 2012 at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta.

Petrochemical America has been made possible, in part, with support from Lee Walls, Jr. and the Turner Foundation.

Related events:

Petrochemical America: Richard Misrach and Kate Orff, Lecture and book signing Thursday, September 20, 6:30 pm , New York RSVP required; contact [email protected] for more information.

Reception, exhibition walkthrough, and book signing with Richard Misrach and Kate Orff Friday, September 21, 6:00–8:00 pm Walkthrough at 6:00 pm Aperture Gallery and Bookstore, New York Free

Petrochemical America: Panel with Kate Orff, Mike Schade, PVC Campaign Coordinator with the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, and Wilma Subra, environmental scientist with the Louisiana Environmental Action Network Tuesday, September 25, 6:30 pm Aperture Gallery and Bookstore, New York Free

Screening of Blue Vinyl, followed by a conversation with David Rosner, environmental health historian, and other special guests to be announced Tuesday, October 2, 6:00 pm Aperture Gallery and Bookstore, New York Free

Aperture invites interested organizations and school groups to visit or conduct class while the exhibition is on view. For more information, contact [email protected].

Related publication:

Petrochemical America, photographs by Richard Misrach and Ecological Atlas by Kate Orff, will be released by Aperture in September 2012.

Location: Aperture Gallery 547 West 27th Street, Fourth floor New York, NY Hours: Monday through Saturday, 10:00 am–6:00 pm; closed Sunday and Labor Day Admission: Free

Richard Misrach (born in , 1949) is the author of fifteen monographs, including four Aperture publications (Violent Legacies, 1992; On The Beach, 2007; Destroy This Memory, 2010; and Golden Gate, 2012). Widely exhibited and collected by major institutions worldwide, he is the recipient of numerous awards for his , including the Guggenheim Fellowship and four fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Kate Orff (born in Maryland, 1971) is an assistant professor at and founder of SCAPE, a landscape architecture studio in Manhattan. Her work weaves together sustainable development, design for biodiversity, and community‐based change. Orff’s recent exhibition at MoMA, Oyster­tecture, imagined the future of the polluted Gowanus Canal as part of a ground‐up community process and an ecologically revitalized New York harbor.

Aperture, a not‐for‐profit foundation, connects the photo community and its audiences with the most inspiring work, the sharpest ideas, and with each other—in print, in person, and online. ###

Press Contact: Barbara Escobar, Publicity and Events Manager, (212) 946‐7123, [email protected]