The Nicholas Metivier Gallery is pleased to announce that Lithium Mines #2 by Edward Burtynsky has been acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of their permanent collection. The Met's Department of Photographs houses a collection of more than 75,000 works spanning the history of photography from its invention in the 1830s to the present.
Read the full announcement here.
Read MoreNovember 24, 2020, Toronto — The Ryerson Image Centre (RIC) is proud to announce a multi-year donation of photographs by celebrated Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, whose iconic images have brought worldwide attention to the impacts of human industry on the natural landscape. The first installment of this gift comprises 142 photographs from the artist’s early career, a selection of which have been made public in a virtual gallery on the RIC’s website. Subsequent annual gifts will make the Toronto-based photography centre the most important global repository for the study of Burtynsky’s oeuvre.
Edward Burtynsky began his career in the late 1970s at the School of Image Arts of Ryerson Polytechnical Institute (now Ryerson University). "It was important to me that my life’s work be housed in a Canadian institution, and it felt like a fitting 'homecoming' to entrust these works to the same place where I first developed as a photographer,” Burtynsky says. “The Ryerson Image Centre has become one of the leading museums in the world for photo historical research and has a growing collection of artist archives. I realized that there was no place I would rather have my work preserved and studied.”
Read the full press release here.
Read MoreBy Sue Carter
Toronto Star
Edward Burtynsky gifting his archives to the Ryerson Image Centre marks a circular journey for one of the world’s most esteemed contemporary photographers.
The downtown university has just announced the first instalment of his multi-year donation to its photographic gallery and research facility. It features 142 photos from Burtynsky’s early career, created between 1976 and 1989. Subsequent annual donations, to span three to five years, will add more chronological works from his five-plus decades of visually documenting how so-called human progress and industrial spread have environmentally devastated the planet.
As a young student from nearby suburban St. Catharines, Burtynsky was exposed to groundbreaking ideas at the School of Image Arts at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute (now Ryerson University) in the late 1970s and early ’80s. Along with art classes, Burtynsky studied sociology, psychology and film. He felt encouraged to take risks with his photography, thanks to energized faculty members such as Marta Braun, whom he credits with teaching him art history.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreWe are delighted to announce the 2020 recipients of the Royal Photographic Society Awards, celebrating excellence and innovation in photography.
Now in its 142nd year, the eighteen categories recognise those individuals who have made outstanding contributions in their fields which cover art, science, education, curation, film and publishing.
“The RPS Awards are unique in recognising individuals across the breadth of the photographic medium. They acknowledge significant contributions from established women and men as well as showcasing a new generation of image-makers using photography as a vehicle for activism, engagement and change.”
– Dr Michael Pritchard FRPS, Director of Education and Public Affairs
Congratulations to all the recipients. Read a special edition of the RPS Journal, explore our new series of events with past and present recipients beginning January 2021, and find out more about the Awards here →
Read MoreFuture Cities Canada
A Conversation with Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky and Globe & Mail visual art critic Kate Taylor kicks off the first week of Future Cities Canada: #UnexpectedSolutions, a six-week virtual city-building gathering showcasing the best-of in innovation in cities from across Canada and around the world. The free public talk takes place on Tuesday, October 20, 2020 at 10 a.m. and is the first of three new thought-provoking conversations presented as part of the TD Future Cities Speaker Series, a program supported by TD Bank Group through its corporate citizenship platform, The Ready Commitment. Launched in 2018, this series presents ideas from some of the world’s leading minds in urban systems; this year’s topics explore themes ranging from climate adaptability and placemaking to housing and infrastructure.
Read the full press release here.
Register for free here.
Read MoreThe Pictet Group
Found In Conversation (Podcast)
Can photography encourage sustainability? In this episode Renaud de Planta, Pictet’s Senior Managing Partner, explores the power of the image with Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, who has dedicated his life to documenting the impact of economies on the environment. This special episode is hosted by Isabelle von Ribbentrop, the Pictet Group’s Global Head of Branding, Advertising and Sponsoring.
Listen to the episode here.
Read MoreOn the occasion of the opening of the new exhibition Natural Order at Metivier Gallery in Toronto, Edward Burtynsky and Paul Roth presented a gallery talk on the new body of work and how it came to be.
Read MoreRight now the message of Earth Day, on its 50th anniversary, seems more urgent than ever. There’s no doubt that the ravenous human appetite to conquer nature has compelled us to encroach on natural habitats and biodiversity in an ever-expanding way, and that this has led us to where we are today — isolated at home with a new pathogen determined to wreak global havoc. It seems the paradigm has shifted: where humans once had our collective boot on nature’s neck, we now find ourselves with nature’s boot firmly pressed against ours.
Gerhard Richter once said that “art is the highest form of hope” and my hope is that during this time in isolation I am able to create a suite of images, going back to my roots and looking at nature, with proceeds going directly to support the art sector in Canada.
The arts have taken an oversized hit during these times and will continue to suffer enormously because of this crisis. And yet, it is the artists, musicians, filmmakers and performers to whom we are all turning for catharsis, relaxation, distraction, entertainment and, perhaps most importantly, hope. Artists now need our support as much as we need theirs.
I do not know what the next few months will bring, but in this time of isolation and contemplation, I can be assured of one very important thing: the future of life on this planet rests in our hands. There may one day soon be a vaccine for this virus, but there is no vaccine for climate change.
Until such a time as life can return to something we are a little more familiar with, please stay safe and be well.
– Ed
By Edward Burtynsky
The Globe & Mail
It feels a little surreal to be commemorating the 50th anniversary of Earth Day in the middle of this unprecedented global crisis. Admittedly, I had envisioned this day much differently, yet with COVID-19 forcing us all into isolation, the message of Earth Day seems more urgent than ever.
My 40-year career as an artist has taken me on a journey around our planet in search of the largest examples of human systems expressed upon the land and sea. I have been to many places that very few of us have any reason to go – the places where we wrest out the things we need from nature to propel our human destiny. My first trip to China in 2002 took me to Wuhan en route to photograph along the Yangtze River, where entire cities and landscapes were being commandeered and flattened to make way for the building of the Three Gorges Dam. So, when the pictures first emerged of the coronavirus lockdown in Wuhan months ago, never did I imagine seeing cities being shut down in this new and devastating way – or that we would soon experience this contagion all over the world.
There’s no doubt that the ravenous human appetite to conquer nature has compelled us to encroach on natural habitats and biodiversity in an ever-expanding way, and that this has led us to where we are today – isolated at home, with a new pathogen determined to wreak global havoc. It seems the paradigm has shifted: Where humans once had our collective boot on nature’s neck, we now find ourselves with nature’s boot firmly pressed against ours.
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.
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