エドワード·バーティンスキー
爱德华·伯汀斯基

Nickel Tailings

source: thegauntlet

Edward Burtynsky hopes his images are seen as “as reflecting pools of our time.” These photographs of human industry and landscapes warped by the extraction of the planet’s resources are not only frames– they’re statements of truth.

The Toronto photographer’s subjects are quite diverse– marine oil fields, workers’ dorms in southern China’s manufacturing plants, and Bangladeshi ship demolition yards.But the common thread weaving Burtynsky’s work together is how human interactions with the planet are altering its landscape.

As one wanders through the Edward Burtynsky: Encounters exhibit, currently on display at Calgary’s Glenbow Museum, it is easy to see a sort of beauty in the destruction of our planet. Burtynsky’s photo of the bizarre geometry of Carrara, Italy’s marble quarries– from which the marble for both Michelangelo’s David and modern-day kitchen counter-tops have been removed– shows the power of humans to alter the Earth’s landscapes beyond anything even remotely resembling nature.

The exhibit’s images are selected by various guest curators from across Canada, ranging from Olympic medalist Mark Tewksbury and media personality George Stromboulopoulos to Calgary’s Glendale School’s grade 5 and 6 students.

CBC Radio host Jim Brown is one guest curator. “[The images] that struck me were the tightly cropped ones, where you weren’t really sure what you were seeing,” says Brown. “I just like the fact that the context is sort of removed . . . they’ve got a strange painterly quality to them.”

The prints are also substantially sized and detailed. Take National Film Board director and animator Cam Christiansen’s selection, for example– from afar it may look like a picture of a massive ship under construction in China’s Zhejiang province, but dozens of workers’ bicycles are tucked neatly underneath the ship’s bow. This makes it seem as though the bicycles are the only thing propping up the precariously perched vessel.

Beyond the contrast between the images’ massive size and tiny details, the photographic beauty of Burtynsky’s work is juxtaposed with the unseemly nature of its subject matter.

“How can a mountain that has been scraped for marble or granite be beautiful?” asks Brown. “But the way it’s shot and framed, and the way [Burtynsky] composes it, turns it into something that is actually quite beautiful.”

When Burtynsky explores poverty in Bangladesh, “he doesn’t show a woman crying over a sick or starving child,” says Brown– instead, he focuses on decrepit tankers, creating an intellectual response rather than an emotional one.

“You’re more likely to have a lasting effect on someone if you engage them intellectually,” remarks Brown.

A photo captures an exceptional moment in time, but Burtynsky doesn’t capture exceptional moments. Instead, he takes the everyday and the industrial processes that shape it to create an exceptional composition that allows us to pause and reflect on our place in the world.
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source: edwardburtynsky

TAILINGS: Burtynsky’s skill as a photographic colourist is evident in most of his work, but perhaps most strikingly in a group of photographs of nickel tailings near Sudbury, Ontario. Juxtaposing pulsating orange against a glossy black background, he extracts spectacular images from a landscape that many might consider unphotogenic. The startling colours are those we see when lava flows from an erupting volcano, which is perhaps why we immediately associate this image with natural disaster. In actual fact, the intense reds and oranges are caused by the oxidation of the iron that is left behind in the process of separating nickel and other metals from the ore.

Nature transformed through industry is a predominant theme in my work. I set course to intersect with a contemporary view of the great ages of man; from stone, to minerals, oil, transportation, silicon, and so on. To make these ideas visible I search for subjects that are rich in detail and scale yet open in their meaning. Recycling yards, mine tailings, quarries and refineries are all places that are outside of our normal experience, yet we partake of their output on a daily basis. These images are meant as metaphors to the dilemma of our modern existence; they search for a dialogue between attraction and repulsion, seduction and fear. We are drawn by desire – a chance at good living, yet we are consciously or unconsciously aware that the world is suffering for our success. Our dependence on nature to provide the materials for our consumption and our concern for the health of our planet sets us into an uneasy contradiction. For me, these images function as reflecting pools of our times.
Edward Burtynsky

Edward Burtynsky is known as one of Canada’s most respected photographers. His remarkable photographic depictions of global industrial landscapes are included in the collections of over fifty major museums around the world, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California. Born in 1955 of Ukrainian heritage at St. Catharines, Ontario, Burtynsky is a graduate of Ryerson University (Bachelor of Applied Arts in Photography) and studied Graphic Art at Niagara College in Welland. He links his early exposure to the sites and images of the General Motors plant in his hometown to the development of his photographic work. His imagery explores the intricate link between industry and nature, combining the raw elements of mining, quarrying, manufacturing, shipping, oil production and recycling into eloquent, highly expressive visions that find beauty and humanity in the most unlikely of places. In 1985, Burtynsky also founded Toronto Image Works, a darkroom rental facility, custom photo laboratory, digital imaging and new media computer-training centre catering to all levels of Toronto’s art community. Mr. Burtynsky also sits on the board of directors for: Toronto’s international photography festival, Contact and The Ryerson Gallery and Research Center.
Exhibitions include Water (2013) at the New Orleans Museum of Art & Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans, Louisiana (international touring exhibition), Oil (2009) at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. (five-year international touring show), Manufactured Landscapes at the National Gallery of Canada (touring from 2003 – 2005), Before the Flood (2003), and China (toured 2005 – 2008). Burtynsky’s visually compelling works are currently being exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across Canada, in the United States, Europe and Asia.
An active lecturer on photographic art, Mr. Burtynsky’s speaking engagements include the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., George Eastman House in Rochester, NY, The Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the TED conference, Idea City, and Ryerson University in Toronto. His images appear in numerous periodicals each year, in the past among them are: Canadian Art, Art in America, The Smithsonian, Harper’s Magazine, Flash Art, Blind Spot, Art Forum, Saturday Night, Playboy, National Geographic Society and the New York Times.
Mr. Burtynsky’s distinctions include the TED Prize, The Outreach award at the Rencontres d’Arles, The Flying Elephant Fellowship, Applied Arts Magazine book award(s), and the Roloff Beny Book award. In 2006 he was awarded the title of Officer of the Order of Canada and holds four honorary doctorate degrees, with a fifth to be awarded in 2013.
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source: artaujourdhui

Edward Burtynsky est l’un des photographes les plus en vue de la scène artistique canadienne. Il a acquis en quelques années une reconnaissance internationale, à la mesure des enjeux géopolitiques ambitieux de son art. Ses photographies ont fait le tour du monde, mais Manufactured Landscapes est sa première exposition personnelle à Paris. Elle réunit une sélection des oeuvres qui ont récemment fait l’objet de l’exposition Manufactured Landscapes à la Yours Gallery de Varsovie. Parallélement à l’exposition du Centre culturel canadien le Théâtre de la Photographie et de l’Image à Nice présente ses œuvres cet été, dans le cadre de la manifestation Enfants de Cartier : Photographie canadienne contemporaine.
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source: hotels-paris-rive-gauche

Reconnu pour ses oeuvres imposantes de paysages industriels, Edward Burtynsky explore les relations complexes qui se sont instaurées entre la terre et la technologie pour en révéler la beauté inhérente ou inattendue.

Artiste de Toronto d’origine ukrainienne, Edward Burtynsky est né à St Catharines, ville du sud-ouest de l’Ontario dont le paysage industriel est notamment marqué par les importants sites de production de la compagnie General Motors. Artiste activement engagé dans son milieu, Burtynsky est, entre autres fonctions, membre du conseil d’administration du Festival international de photographie de Toronto.

Edward Burtynsky
Ses photographies n’ont pas pour objet de nous prévenir de la menace de dévastation pesant sur la nature et causée par l’industrie ; elles ne s’attachent pas non plus, à l’inverse, à célébrer les spectaculaires succès du progrès technologique. Les images de sites industriels (carrières, mines, raffineries, industries marines, industries de fabrication ou de recyclage, etc.) construites par le regard de Burtynsky imposent au spectateur la vision de ce qui lui est caché ou qu’il ignore et qui le rattache à une dimension importante des produits qu’il consomme, les gigantesques fabriques d’extraction ou de transformation des matières premières. Enquêteur des sites les plus reculés de manufacture et de production technologique, Burtynsky témoigne d’un aspect de l’activité de l’homme relativement à l’écart du regard de chacun et des gigantesques empreintes que cette activité laisse sur l’environnement, créant les nouveaux paysages de notre monde dont certains atteignent une dimension sublime.
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source: canada-web

L’autore canadese, fin dall’inizio della sua carriera trentennale si è sempre confrontato con la natura in trasformazione e in particolare con l’effetto del progresso sul paesaggio.
Pochi autori della contemporaneità, come lui, hanno saputo cogliere un nuovo senso del sublime nei panorami manipolati dall’industrializzazione e dallo sfruttamento delle risorse naturali, portando lo spettatore a interrogarsi sugli effetti del consumismo esasperato. Le sue immagini raccontano dello sfruttamento delle risorse del pianeta, restituendo un paesaggio trasformato e ferito.
Fotografie che sono una metafora dell’eterna contraddizione dell’uomo, che da sempre prende dalla natura ciò che gli serve per “migliorare” la qualità della vita, ma inevitabilmente ne causa il deterioramento. Le opere di Burtynsky si fondano su un sottile equilibrio, figurando questi eventi tramite immagini dal fortissimo impatto estetico. L’uso di un’iniziale “bellezza” dell’immagine crea un’empatia tra opera e fruitore, che spinge inconsciamente verso una dimensione riflessiva. Un gioco che sfiora la contraddizione: dietro una magnificenza compositiva, si celano paesaggi che contengono il dramma di un’insostenibilità giunta al limite.
Le circa trenta opere di grandi dimensioni esposte nella mostra, manifestano questo incontro-scontro mediante la presentazione di luoghi dal valore emblematico come le miniere di nichel, lo sbancamento delle cave, i cimiteri di relitti navali o le imponenti costruzioni delle nuove città asiatiche. Luoghi lontani tra loro come gli Stati Uniti, la Cina, il Canada o il Bangladesh divengono teatro delle medesime problematiche universali.
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source: otofotoblog

Prawdopodobnie jeden z niewielu fotografów, którego prace mogą wpłynąć na decyzje rządzących.

Pierwsze dwadzieścia minut dokumentu Przemysłowe Krajobrazy Edwarda Burdzynskyego z 2006r. przyprawiło mnie o znużenie i senność – jaką inną reakcję mógł wywołać bardzo dłuuuuugi przejazd przez ogromną chińską fabrykę? Dopiero później dotarł do mnie fakt jak WIELE miejsca zajmuje tego typu budynek!
To dopiero początek – dalej mogło być tylko gorzej – wysypiska odpadów poprzemysłowych na których bawią się dzieci, a ludzie żyją z segregacji radioaktywnych odpadów, ruiny i gruzy miasteczek, które zostają przeniesione ze względu na budowę największej tamy na świecie Three Gorges Dam, sentymentalne wspomnienia wysiedlonych ludzi, którzy nie potrafią się odnaleźć w wielkim mieście. Czy przecudna cywilizacja i postęp technologiczny to samo dobro? Do czego doprowadzi?
Czy na prawdę jesteśmy w tym “cywilizowanym” świecie szczęśliwi?

Burtynsky – uczeń przesławnej szkoły Becherów,
(w jego pracach o dziwo brakuje obiektywizmu) fotografuje poprodukcyjne krajobrazy kamieniołomów, recykling jardów, fabryki, kopalnie, tamy. Fotografuje cywilizację i gruzu – czyli wszystko to co z sobą niesie. W sposób, który ludzie opisują jako “wspaniały” lub “piękny” i tak rodzi różnego rodzaju pytania dotyczące etyki i estetyki,
nie próbując na nie łatwo odpowiedzieć.

Z pochodzenia Ukrainiec wyemigrował z rodziną
do Kanady. Jego ojciec znalazł pracę na linii produkcyjnej w miejscowym zakładzie General Motors. W wieku 11 lat kiedy ojciec zakupil ciemnię fotograficzną nauczył się fotografii. Później wraz
z starszą siostrą założył małą firmę robienia zdjęć portretowych w lokalnym centrum ukraińskim. Później został drukarzem i zaczął zajęcia wieczorowe w fotografii. Jego wczesne inspiracje to m.in. Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Eadweard Muybridge’a i Carleton Watkins.

Fotografie krajobrazów poprzemysłowych rozpoczął podczas wycieczki, zboczył z trasy i dostał się w okolice kopalni. Większość wystawionych fotografii Burtynsky została wykonana dużym aparatem 4×5 cala na blachach i opracowany w wysokiej rozdzielczości, wielkogabarytowych odbitek (z około 50×60 cm). Często umieszcza się, aby uzyskać dobry widok nad terenami przy podwyższonych platformach. Niedawno rozpoczął pracę aparatem cyfrowym.
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source: nashih

Едвард Бертински (Edward Burtynsky) – провідний канадський фотограф. Його монументальні індустріальні пейзажі знаходяться у багатьох найбільших музеях світу. Едвард Бертински народився в 1955 році. Живе в Торонто.