The Proust Questionnaire started as a Late Victorian parlour game, aimed at revealing key aspects of a person’s character. While still in his teens, author Marcel Proust answered a similar series of questions with such enthusiasm that, when the manuscript containing his original answers was discovered in 1924, his name became permanently associated with this type of informal interview.
Read the Proust Questionnaire with Edward Burtynsky here.
Read MoreBy Kat Barandy
designboom
this fall, the canadian photography institute of the national gallery of canada and the art gallery of ontario will co-present ‘anthropocene.’ these two new contemporary art exhibitions tell the story of the human impact on the earth and feature the work of photographer edward burtynsky.
in the year 2000, nobel-prize winning chemist paul jozef crutzen first popularized the term ‘anthropocene’ to describe a proposed new geologic era characterized by the evident ‘human signature’ on the planet. since then, the controversial idea has sparked a vigorous and passionate debate among an international group of scientists regarding the actual geologic credibility of the term. critics argue that while the proposition is eye catching, one cannot define a new geologic era without specifying its precise boundaries in the earth’s rock strata. this controversy surrounding the formal termination of the holocene and the beginning of this new ‘human epoch’ sparked photographer edward burtynsky’s ‘anthropocene project.’
Read the full article here.
I'm in a gallery looking at several enormous photographs, though it isn't clear that they are photographs, unless you look at the captions.
Some look like abstract expressionist paintings, swirls of paint dotted and dragged along a canvas, murky and intricate but completely without realism. But then I read the caption and it says "Phospor Tailings Pond #2, Polk County, Florida, USA, 2012", or "Dryland Farming #17, Monegros County, Aragon, Spain, 2011". And what looks like an art-brut rendering of a series of daggers is "Salt Pans #25, Little Rann of Kutch, Gujarat, India, 2016".
In just a couple of photographs, you can clearly see traces of familiar objects – cars parked amidst reservoirs in the graph-like constructivist image of "Pivot Irrigation/Suburb, South of Yuma, Arizona, USA, 2011", or the clearly visible, if diagrammatic, pattern of descending paddy fields in "Rice Terrace #4, Western Yunnan Province, China".
They all look pretty, at first. But when you try and piece together what you're seeing, and try to relate it to any landscape you know, they're frightening.
Read the full article here.
Read MoreBy 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.
Read MoreFriday, 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.
Read MoreBy 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.
Read MoreBy 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.
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.
Read MoreBy 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.
Read MoreBy 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.
Read MoreLONDON, UK, May 14, 2018, 8:00 a.m. (GMT+1) — World-renowned artist Edward Burtynsky will be unveiling his first Augmented Reality (AR) Installation as part of his special exhibition during Photo London at Somerset House in London, UK, May 17-20, 2018 where he is being honoured as this year’s Master of Photography.
The AR Installation, AR #1, Scrap Engine and Rims, Agbogbloshie Recycling Yards, Accra, Ghana 2017, invites visitors to explore the recycling of automotive machine parts from a scrap yard in Accra, Ghana in three dimensions. Made up of over 4,000 images seamlessly stitched together, the piece virtually recreates these objects within the exhibition space. Burtynsky's embracing of AR technology is a natural extension of his 40-year exploration of human systems and their impact on the planet.
Read MoreBy 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.
Read MoreBy 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.
Read MoreOn the event of the exhibition David Milne: Modern Painting, running at London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery from 14 February – 7 May 2018, fellow Canadian artist and Photo London Master of Photography 2018 Edward Burtynsky discussed with exhibition co-curator Sarah Milroy the extraordinary legacy of Milne’s work and the relationship between the painter’s pictures and Burtynsky’s early photographs.
Read the discussion here.
Read MoreBy 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.
Read MoreBy 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
View the full image gallery here.
Read MoreBy 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.
Read MorePhoto 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.
Read MoreBy 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.
#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.
