By Ezrha Jean Black
Artillery Magazine
Edward Burtynsky’s principal subject over the last decade or so has been the industrial landscape, or more specifically, large-scale, frequently aerial views of major industrial operations, grids, excavations, or industrial waste sites. The photographs in his current show at Von Lintel continue in this vein – part of a larger project Burtynsky has titled (not surprisingly), Anthropocene. What is fascinating about the current body of work is that it returns us to the roots of visual abstraction, even the notion of landscape itself. The history of 20th century abstraction begins in landscape (e.g., Picasso’s proto-Cubist Horta landscape studies; and arguably before that). It could be argued that our entire notion of visual abstraction, of visual description, is rooted in our apprehension and appreciation of landscape as referring to a larger notion of environment and exterior surroundings generally. It is the way we define a world within our scope and grasp; also our place in it.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Anna Maria Burgstaller
Widewalls
The Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky became known for documenting the transformation of nature through mankind with his breathtaking large-format photographs of landscapes altered by human hands. His images are metaphors to the dilemma of our modern existence exploring the collective impact of humans on the environment. While nature provides us with the necessary materials for consumption, the planet suffers and Edward Burtynsky is documenting the scale of its destruction.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreLomography
The landscapes of Canadian photographer Edward Butynsky is one of the famous sets to date. His large-format photographs, shaped and created by humanity for industrial purposes, shed light to one of the most intriguing topics in humanity with its global relevance.
Water, humanity's most precious resource remains our wellspring of life. Burtynsky travelled across five continents to explore the ecological scenery and capture the water resources as how they are used, distributed and wasted, disrupting the balance of the environmen. He photographs rivers such as the Colorado and Sacramento river, both estuaries now running dry. Much more can be found in his "Water series".
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Adria Vasil
NOW Magazine
Photographer Ed Burtynsky's latest documentary offers unnerving look on the enormous and irreversible ways that human activity is literally reshaping Earth.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Jordan Bishop
Forbes
When it comes to finding such locations, Burtynsky doesn’t just seek out any instance of the given phenomenon: he pursues the world’s largest-scale example without regard for location or difficulty of access. When I inquire about the background work necessary to shooting a particularly eye-catching image on his studio wall – a godlike view of a seemingly-endless array of abalone and sea cucumber farms in the East China Sea – the thought process he presents is remarkably straightforward: begin by contemplating the role of water and the myriad ways humans use water for his second award-winning documentary, Watermark; identify the fishing industry as a salient theme within that narrative; discern that farm fishing is a larger global protein delivery system than open-sea fishing, and thus a more intriguing study; pinpoint China as home to the largest fish farms on Earth; visit the precise location of the world’s largest collection of fish farms, which sit in Luoyuan Bay just off the coast of Fujian province. The resultant photo, captured in one eight-hundredth of a second, was years in the making.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Daniel Stone
National Geographic
Since sometime between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago, an era generally known as the Bronze Age, humans have been remarkably adept at identifying precious resources and ripping them from the Earth.
For a while, working with bronze or gold or copper meant working with your hands, and with only as much of it as one person could handle. But the 20th century, followed by the 21st, brought marvelous new ways to exploit Earth's elements, namely with industrial beasts that could tear apart landscapes with terrific volume and speed.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Raffi Khatchadourian
The New Yorker
Our helicopter was heading over the Niger Delta, across a vast and unstable sky, with gray clouds surging above. I was sitting behind the pilot, and behind me, gazing out a starboard window, was Edward Burtynsky, a Canadian photographer known for his sweeping images of industrial projects and their effects on the environment. For three decades, he has been documenting colossal mines, quarries, dams, roadways, factories, and trash piles—telling a story, frame by frame, of a planet reshaped by human ambition. For one seminal project, sixteen years ago, he travelled to Bangladesh to shoot decommissioned oil tankers that were being ripped apart by barefoot men with cutting torches. Those images of monumental debris—angular masses that appear to emerge from sediment like alien geology—remain transfixing. Carefully choreographed, shot in hazy and ethereal light, they echo the sublime power of a Turner landscape even as they portray a reckoning with garbage.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Brian Bethune
Maclean's Magazine
One of Canada’s finest photographers considers his craft—and the relationship between his art and the truth—for a retrospective book.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Robert Shore
Elephant Magazine
‘I’m looking at humans and what they’re doing to the planet as if I were an alien’: beauty and terror blend in Canadian artist Edward Burtynsky’s industrial landscapes, which bear seductively powerful witness to the ways in which we are irrevocably changing our world. Robert Shore meets the great documenter of the Anthropocene.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Oliver Wainwright
The Guardian
The great photographer’s awesome images – taken from drones, propellor planes and a 50ft selfie stick – show how industry has drilled and drained our planet.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Stephen Wallis
The Wall Street Journal
In a world distracted by small-screen snapshots and selfies, two eminent photographers are proving that large-scale environmental images are not only relevant but also vital.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Richard Assheton
AnOther Magazine
"My work has never been about pitting heroes against villains. It’s about awareness." As his new retrospective exhibition launches, AnOther sits down with image-maker Edward Burtynsky.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Alistair Sooke
The Telegraph
Ahead of a new exhibition of his work, the Canadian photographer tells Alastair Sooke about the toxic allure of the world's most perilous places.
‘I’ve been to China a dozen times,” says the 61-year-old landscape photographer Edward Burtynsky, “but I’ve never visited the Great Wall.” He smiles. “I don’t go to tourist places. I enter into worlds behind chain-link fences and barbed wire.”
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Laurence Butet-Roch
Vice
We talked to the 'Manufactured Landscapes' photographer about Kenya's ivory burn, Fort McMurray wildfires, and the impact of 3D printing.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreThe Globe and Mail
What a difference a book makes.
Edward Burtynsky was an established Canadian photographer who didn’t have much in the way of an international profile. Then along came the publication, in 2003, of Manufactured Landscapes: The Photographs of Edward Burtynsky, tied in with his touring National Gallery of Canada exhibition. When the book, co-published by the National Gallery and Yale University Press, landed on shelves in major bookstores and museums around the world, the St. Catharines, Ont., native immediately felt the impact.
“All of a sudden I was getting calls from Europe. I was getting calls from the States,” Mr. Burtynsky recalls. “They were all saying, ‘This is really interesting and important work. How did I not know about you?’ ”
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Liz Logan
Introspective Magazine
With his gorgeous aerial photographs — now on view at Norfolk, Virginia's Chrysler Museum of Art — the Canadian photographer makes a powerful plea for the conservation of our most vital natural resource.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Michael Agresta
Texas Observer
There’s a moment halfway through Manufactured Landscapes, a 2006 documentary about Edward Burtynsky, when the celebrated Canadian photographer tries to talk his way into an industrial site in Tianjin, China. The smog outside lies thick and foreboding; the media flack seems to sense that it will cast the company in a negative light. “It’s very dirty,” she tells Burtynsky. “I don’t think it’s a good day to make beautiful pictures.” Burtynsky’s translator tries to convince her: “But through his camera lens, through his eyes, it will appear beautiful.”
Read the full article here.
Read MoreCBC News
Renowned Toronto photographer Edward Burtynsky has decided to take his Governor General's Award prize money and give it all away.
Burtynsky was honoured by the Canada Council on Monday for his work promoting environmentalism through global industrial landscape photography — and now he wants to help others promote their own unique artistic visions.That's why he's turning the $25,000 financial portion of the award into an annual grant to help emerging Canadian photographers create and publish their first photography books.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Anthi Rozi
Archisearch
Edward Burtynsky was born in 1955 in Ontario Canada. He received his BAA in Photography / Media Studies from Ryerson University in 1982 and in 1985 founded Toronto Image Works. Early exposure to the sites of the General Motors plant in his hometown helped to formulate the development of his photographic work. His imagery explores the collective impact we as a species are having on the surface of the planet; an inspection of the human systems we`ve imposed onto natural landscapes.
His photographic depictions of global industrial landscapes are included in the collections of over sixty major museums around the world. As an active lecturer on photographic art, Burtynsky`s speaking engagements have been held at the National Gallery of Canada, the Library of Congress in Washington, the TED conferences, among others. His images appear in numerous periodicals each year including National Geographic, the New York Times, The Smithsonian Magazine. Among his distinctions are the TED Prize, The Outreach award at the Rencontres d`Arles, the Roloff Beny Book Award. In 2006 he was awarded the title of Officer of the Order of Canada. His work is represented by numerous galleries internationally.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy Tyler Green
The Modern Art Notes Podcast
Edward Burtynsky is one of North America’s most important photographers. In bodies of work such as “China,” and “Oil,” Burtynsky has conducted sustained examinations of mankind’s use of the planet’s natural resources and of the ways industry has transformed nature. His work has been the subject of dozens of major museum exhibitions around the world, including at the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
Burtynsky’s most recent show, “Water,” features nearly five dozen works mostly examining the ways in which human societies have re-made the natural environment in an effort to use water. The show originated at the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans and was curated by Russell Lord. The book that accompanies the exhibition is published by Steidl. “Water” is on view at the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Va. through May 15.
Air date: Feburary 18, 2016.
Listen to the Podcast here.
Read More