NEWS HUB

Honorary doctorate for legendary St. Catharines photographer

By Dan Dakin
The Brock News

Edward Burtynsky has gone around the world capturing remarkable images of humanity’s impact on our planet, and he doesn’t like what he sees.

His images appear in more than 60 major museums, including the Guggenheim, but Niagara is where the roots of his art were planted. It’s also where a large collection of his photographs can be found hanging in the Rodman Hall Art Centre.

Burtynsky was awarded an honorary doctorate from Brock University on Friday, June 8, and told the large group of graduands from the Faculties of Humanities, and Math and Science, that Niagara was where he first became interested in industrial landscapes.

Read the full article here.

World-Renowned Photographer Edward Burtynsky to receive honorary degree at Brock’s Spring Convocation

Friday, June 8, 10 a.m. — Edward Burtynsky, World-Renowned Photographer

His remarkable photographs of industrial landscapes have been included in the collections of more than 60 major museums around the world, but it was in his hometown of St. Catharines that Edward Burtynsky first learned his craft.

Known as one of Canada’s most respected photographers, Burtynsky was influenced early in his career by the images of Niagara’s General Motors plants. His images explore the collective impact we’re having on the planet, looking at the human systems we’ve imposed onto natural landscapes.

When he receives an honorary doctorate from Brock University on Friday, June 8, it will be Burtynsky’s eighth such degree.

Edward Burtynsky: 'The technical revolution has turned us into a virus'

By Nick Glass
CNN Style

Edward Burtynsky likes to think big. It's always been his natural inclination. Every time the Canadian photographer frames an image, he imagines it big. The bigger the print the better -- anything up to 9 feet by 18 feet -- which makes complete sense, given the size of his subject matter.

For some 35 years, Burtynsky has been photographing humankind's industrial intervention in natural landscapes. His panoramas have expanded with technology. Since 2003, he has used helicopters and, since 2012, a bespoke drone. His images help us look down on our planet in a new and detailed way.

We all know that humans are scarring the landscape. But Burtynsky provides the visual evidence on a breathtaking scale: great wounds slashed into the earth -- from coal and copper mines, oil refineries, salt pans -- and all the wasteland, spills and debris that result from them.

Read the full article here.

CELEBRATING PHOTOGRAPHIC ICONS

By Sarah Straussberg
Sarahstraussberg.com

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Photo London since its launch in 2015. Having created the ‘Master of Photography’ award for previous winners Sebastião Salgado, Don McCullen, and Taryn Simon, I was thrilled this year to design an original piece of work for another hugely talented photographic artist, Edward Burtynsky.

To begin, I spent some time immersing myself in his work, drawn to the birds-eye view he uses and the incredible detail of textures and vibrant colour he captures. Listening to Burtynsky describe the photographs as a documentation of what we as humans do to our earth really inspired me to keep the design clean, simple and a reflection of his ideas.

Read the full article here.

Edward Burtynsky unveils preview of Anthropocene project at Photo London

By Anny Shaw
The Art Newspaper

Much like archaeological eras, the Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky’s projects tend to span long stretches of time. He spent a decade working on his Oil series and five years on the Water project. But, for the past five years, he has been preoccupied by the Anthropocene project, part of which was unveiled for the first time at Photo London art fair yesterday, 16 May (until 20 May).

Most striking among the works is a high resolution mural showing a Carrara marble quarry, a more than six metre-long panorama made by seamlessly stitching together 122 50-megapixel files. The piece literally comes to life using augmented reality (AR)—when you hold an iPad up to the print, the image on the screen pans out to reveal the magnitude of the scene, complete with moving trucks and diggers.

Read the full article here.

HOW A FORMER JANITOR BECAME A PHOTOGRAPHIC GREAT

By Mr Tom Seymour
Mr. Porter

This week, Mr Edward Burtynsky will fly to London to be garlanded as Photo London’s Master of Photography. At the fair, he will exhibit, for the first time, images from his Anthropocene project, a sprawling, years-in-the-making, multinational blockbuster of a photography show, with a bolt-on a feature film and “augmented-reality experience” that explores the impact humans are having on the earth.

The Canadian curator Mr Marc Mayer calls them “exquisite pictures of ugliness”. For decades, Mr Burtynsky has documented some of the most damaged places on the planet, such as the floating slum of Makoko in Lagos, the graveyard of ship hulks in Bangladesh and the flattened jungles of Borneo. He uses a precision large-format camera to create impossibly detailed photographs. They are, Mr Mayer says, “a dystopian sublime”, inarguable, highly aesthetic evidence of the havoc our species is wreaking on the natural world.

Read the full article here.

Q & A with Photographer Edward Burtynsky

By Franca Toscano
Blouin Art Info

Edward Burtynsky is a landscape photographer of a very particular kind: he shoots landscapes and natural settings that have been excavated, cut up, and often gutted by mankind, all in the name of progress. The 63-year-old Canadian is being honored at the Photo London fair (May 17-20) with a tribute and special exhibition featuring his latest work. Modern Painters interviewed him before the fair.

Read the Q&A here.

Edward Burtynsky: ‘We can’t all live off the land, so we’re kind of in a pickle’

By Nancy Durrant
The Times

Sometimes there is only one feasible response when someone shows you a cool thing, and that is: “Woah!” I’m standing in the downtown Toronto studio of the photographer Edward Burtynsky, pointing an iPad at a target on the floor. The artist and his partner, Julia Johnston (who also works in the studio), are looking on and laughing, because I’m amazed. There’s nothing on the floor, but through the iPad I can see, walk around and peer into a 3D pile of discarded car tyre rims. It’s from a scrapyard in Accra, Ghana, and is made of tens of thousands of images stitched together by recently developed, powerful software to create this uncanny experience. Burtynsky reaches politely over my shoulder and shows me how to flip between several — what, images? Scenes? I don’t even know the right word — all pin-sharp. I say “woah” again.

This augmented-reality installation will be part of Burtynsky’s exhibition at Photo London, which runs from Thursday to Sunday next week at Somerset House. The artist has been named the annual fair’s master of photography (previous winners of the award include Taryn Simon, Don McCullin and Sebastião Salgado), which recognises a photographer’s stature and impact — or, as Burtynsky puts it when I ask what he thinks it means: “Longevity, persistence, quality. Not giving up.”

Read the full article here.

Photo London's Master of Photography in 2018 - A Talk with Edward Burtynsky

By Angie Kordic
Widewalls

Edward Burtynsky is a Master of Photography – and not just because that is his honorable title at this year’s Photo London.

This Canadian fine art photographer certainly is one of the most prolific visual artists today, with a practice that chronicles the impacts of the human kind on its planet. From sawmills and oil bunkers in Nigeria to the salt pans in India and mines in Australia and Canada, his imagery is a striking reminder of what a man’s greed and carelessness can do to landscapes that mean life.

Listen to the talk and continue reading here.

Edward Burtynsky’s environmental themes emerge with a harmonious new context at the Art Gallery of Hamilton

By Murray Whyte
Toronto Star

Edward Burtynsky’s great big photographs ooze uncomfortable truth, though the artist himself, careful not to preach, once took a more ambivalent stance. But at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, where a few dozen of the 76 pictures he recently donated to the museum are now on view, an unintended synergy freights even his earliest images with the unleavened urgency they demand. Terrible beauty, Burtynsky’s esthetic calling card, remains present, never fear. But these days, terror comes first.

The Burtynsky show, Witness, is surrounded by Water Works, an engaging, alarming exhibition that largely concerns itself with the accreting perils of depleting, poisoning or otherwise contaminating our most precious resource. The AGH, for its part, cries coincidence, but, seriously: To get to his pictures, you have to first walk right through it. Taken together, they send alarm bells ringing: Effect, meet cause.

Continue reading here.

Edward Burtynsky: 2018 winner of Master of Photography – in pictures

By Matt Fidler
The Guardian

The Photo London Master of Photography award is given annually to a leading contemporary photographer. A special exhibition shows new and rarely seen images from Burtynsky’s portfolio including a preview of his new work, Anthropocene, and explores the complexities of modern existence and diverse subjects such as Australian and Canadian mines, oil bunkering and sawmills in Nigeria, the salt pans of India and sprawling cityscapes

Burtynsky will speak at Photo London on 17 May at 5.30pm. Tickets will be available via the Photo London website

View the full image gallery here.

Edward Burtynsky and a bigger Discoveries section at Photo London 2018

By Diane Smyth
British Journal of Photography

Photo London is back at Somerset House from 17-20 May, with an exhibition of Edward Burtynsky's new work and 22 galleries in the Discoveries emerging showcase.

He’s currently working on a five-year project on the Anthropocene – the proposed name for our current geological age, an age on which human activity has had a profound and still ultimately unknown impact. A multidisciplinary initiative with long-term collaborators Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencie, Anthropocene includes images showing urbanisation, urbanisation, industrialisation and mining, from oil bunkering and sawmills in Nigeria to the salt mines of the Ural Mountains.

Read the full article here.

PHOTO LONDON MASTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY | EDWARD BURTYNSKY

Photo London is delighted to announce Canadian fine art photographer Edward Burtynsky as its Master of Photography for 2018. Burtynsky’s practice eloquently chronicles human impact on the planet. His images are widely regarded as key visual documents of our time.

Burtynsky's Anthropocene coming to the AGO in September 2018

By Kevin Ritchie
NOW Magazine

The photographer's sprawling collaboration with filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier will open simultaneously in Toronto and Ottawa

The latest collaboration between photographer Edward Burtynsky and filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier is the Art Gallery of Ontario’s (AGO) major fall 2018 exhibit.

The trio, who previously worked together on the documentary films Manufactured Landscapes and Watermark, will explore climate change and the irreversible impacts of human life on the planet through the Anthropocene Project, which combines art, environment science and anthropology.

Read the full article here.

Art Gallery of Ontario and National Gallery of Canada to co-present major exhibitions detailing the impact of humans on Earth

#AnthropoceneProject unveils new works by the artist collective of Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier

TORONTO and OTTAWA – Next fall, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and the Canadian Photography Institute (CPI) of the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) will co-present Anthropocene, a major new contemporary art exhibition that tells the story of human impact on the Earth through film, photography, and new experiential technologies. Co-produced with MAST Foundation, Bologna, Italy, the exhibition is a component of the multi-disciplinary Anthropocene Project from the collective of photographer Edward Burtynsky and filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier. Organized by the artists in partnership with the three organizations, Anthropocene will run at the AGO and NGC simultaneously from September 2018 through early 2019.

Read the Press Release HERE.

Why Manufactured Landscapes' message about consumption is more important than ever

CBC Arts

David Suzuki, Sophie Hackett and Darrell Varga look back at the award-winning 2006 documentary.

At their best, movies have the power to challenge our perspectives and help us see the bigger picture. It's hard to think of a more literal example than Manufactured Landscapes. Directed by Jennifer Baichwal — and featuring spectacular images from Canadian photographer Ed Burtynsky — the film takes us to some of humanity's most mesmerizing industrial landscapes. From a factory in China that employs some 23,000 people to world's largest dam, which has uprooted more than 1 million people since it was built, it's a stunning exploration.

Read the full article here.

The Filmmakers airs this Saturday at 8:30 p.m. (9 NT) on CBC Television, or stream it at cbc.ca/watch. After the episode, stick around to see this week's feature presentation, Manufactured Landscapes.

An Audain Art Museum Special Exhibition EDWARD BURTYNSKY: THE SCARRED EARTH

By Rebecca Wood Barrett
Whistler Traveller

“Many of these works are quite large, usually a minimum of one metre high and two metres wide,” says Darrin Martens, the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky chief curator of the museum. “When you’re looking at these works you become in some ways very immersed in the situation. You are part of that experience of witnessing.”

Read the full article here.

Edward Burtynsky – Interview, Part III

By Kevin Raber
The Luminous Landscape

Prints, Studio and Color Lab

Kevin Raber and Edward Burtynsky discuss one of his prints

My interview with Ed Burtynsky continues with this final segment. This is the part I enjoyed the most as Ed and I talk about his prints and why and how he makes such big prints. For Ed, it’s all about the print. As he explains when looking through the viewfinder he is composing for the look. But, when the print is made the magic comes alive as the most minute details become visible.
I call it immersive imaging and for me, it is where the viewer looks at a large print from a distance and then finds something of interest and moves closer and closer to the print discovering new things in the print along the way. Ed calls it the six-inch test. The bottom line -Ed’s prints need to be viewed large and inspected close up. There are treasures to be seen in his photographs.

All of Pt. III here.

Edward Burtynsky – Interview, Part II

By Kevin Raber
The Luminous Landscape

Ed's Camera Gear

Continuing my interview with Ed Burtynsky, we talk about every photographer's favorite subject, cameras. Ed shares with us his evolution of camera systems from 4x5 and 8x10 film to the Hasselblad 100 mega-pixel digital camera. Much of Ed’s work is shot from high altitude, and he has a few stories about how that is accomplished. You’ll also hear why during the film days Ed decided to shoot his work with color negative film. He shares his evolution of color printing and how he went from a hybrid color workflow to his eventual full digital workflow.

Ed’s projects are related to man's effect on our world. One of his most noted projects is one about water. I have included links below to clips of the watermark project. These short clips and the film itself will get you thinking. The same as his Landscape Of Oil project.

All of Part II here.