PENTIMENTO

The Pentimento project is a suite of black and white prints produced from unintentionally distressed Type 55 Polaroid negatives originally made as test-shots in the Chittagong Delta of Bangladesh, where Burtynsky photographed his celebrated Shipbreaking series. Replete with the blemishes and scars of the photographic process, the images have a raw and painterly appearance and an intimate appeal. Opening his archive to the viewer by realizing in print the intermediate stage of one of his most celebrated bodies of work, Burtynsky shines an unprecedented light on the evolution of his imagery. The result is a captivating body of work that describes the ghost image lying beneath the work’s surface:

“The image under the image: pentimento. It’s a word drawn from the scholarship of painting, and it describes when the artist has painted over a section of canvas, yet traces of the earlier image persist, reemerging over time. The under-painting rises up as a ghost into the final work, revealing the process of how the painting came to be. Borrowing the word from that context, I apply it to photography, a medium redolent of time, memory and revelation.” — Edward Burtynsky.

For Burtynsky, black and white recalls the beginnings of photography, and as such these prints are an elegy, not only to historical photographic processes, but also to the antiquated, labour intensive operation of dismantling ships by hand. Burtynsky was haunted by the idea of rusting ships being unwittingly turned into colossal sculptural forms on the mudflats of Chittagong, and these pictures allowed him to further express the otherworldly quality of the place that they capture whilst giving his ‘ghosts’ a life of their own.

HARDCOVER / FOLIO EDITION: signed by the artist / colophon on shell ed. 30 + 5 a/p (artist proof) + 5 p/p (printer's proof)

Each includes a limited edition suite of ten 20 x 24 inch archival chromogenic prints on 90 lb. Stonehenge substrate.

Pages: 56
Publisher: Burtynsky Studio (2011)
Language: English
ISBN: n/a
Product Dimensions: 20.75 x 24.75 x 1.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 6.577 kg

SLIPCASE HARDCOVER EDITION: signed by the artist / colophon / 
ed. 100 numbered copies & 26 lettered copies (retained by the artist) each accompanied by one 11 x 14 inch archival chromogenic print.

Pages: 56
Publisher: Burtynsky Studio (2011)
Language: English
ISBN: 978-0-9865987-2-2
Product Dimensions: 13.75 x 16.12 x 1.187 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.6 kg

HARDCOVER:

Pages: 56
Publisher: Burtynsky Studio (2011)
Language: English
ISBN: n/a
Product Dimensions: 12 x 15 x 1.25 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.3 kg

PAPERBACK:

Pages: 56
Publisher: Burtynsky Studio (2011)
Language: English
ISBN: n/a
Product Dimensions: 12 x 15 x 1.25 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.3 kg

For more information about Pentimento, contact Marcus Schubert.