Manufactured Landscapes: the photographs of Edward Burtynsky

Edward Burtynsky's mid-career retrospective, Manufactured Landscapes, closed April 4, 2004 at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto after four months of winter reverie. The exhibit showcased 60 large-format photographs, proving Burtynsky an established and leading thinker in the genre of man-altered landscape photography. This travelling exhibition Manufactured Landscapes was also presented at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa this year as well and will be shown again at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 2005. The travelling exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated book, Manufactured Landscapes: The Photographs of Edward Burtynsky by Lori Pauli, Assistant Curator of Photography at the National Gallery of Canada was published by Yale University Press. Edward Burtynsky was also highlighted by Marnin Young in the May/June 2003 issue of Afterimage.

Edward Burtynsky illustrates that photography can be a means to an end for social and environmental awareness. Through his photographs. Burtynsky triggers a sense of social concern, while seeking beauty in the most austere, decayed objects. His photographs shed a golden light on the ramifications of our "throwaway" society. Similar in tradition to John Pfahl, Richard Misrach and Emmet Gowin's nuclear wastelands, he challenges traditional ideas of landscape photography, engaging the viewer to contemplate ecological and sociological issues while at the same time creating a visually intriguing work of art. They demand that the viewer look closer and find a new and intriguing detail each time. Once the detail is seen, every minute speck of rusted metal, worn tire and golden light on the decrepit shipwrecking docks in Bangladesh seep sensuously to our sense of social awareness.

The AGO presented Burtynsky's retrospective in a respectable, educational and inspiring manner. Three large galleries showcased various series of work including nickel tailing ponds, quarries, rail cuts, urban mines, interiors of recycling plants and his most recent work of the dismantling of oil tankers on the beaches of Bangladesh. Burtynsky works with magnitude in order to accomplish his visual task, printing at a 30"X40" or 40"X50" scale. Each piece is superbly printed; digital color saturating watercolor paper with a simple uniform black frame that puts emphasis on the work, not the presentation. The three galleries gave the viewer clean lines and a classic presentation of complex commentaries on the waste of our society.

With photographs ranging from scenes in Italy, China, Bangladesh, Ontario, Vermont and Pennsylvania, Burtynsky seeks out landscapes that are out of the reach of most people. He extensively researches and conceptually plans his photographs before he departs on his adventures. Often these photographs serve as visual records in an ever-changing landscape; quarries will naturally fill with water, mines will be abandoned, and piles of tires will prove themselves flammable. His layered photographs condense the evidence of man and its industrious production. His lone imagery shows subtle signs of the tenacious survival of the natural world even when submitted to abuse.

Oil filters, cans, piping, telephones and large piles of tires create modern patterns of grey, dirt, and chemical discharge. Telephone cemeteries and condensed cubes of our waste create quiet color schemes of cubist rust. Edward Burtynsky has mastered photographing during the most golden hours of the day to create a body of work that stands out like a box of crayolas with only blue, orange, rust, red and a hint of green. Wires seem to move across the photograph as rusted belts exude the energy of electricity-producing machines. The toxic legacy of the subject matter, combined with a perfected eye for finding color in the muted schemes of quarries and trash piles make the photographs dance with energy. Their symphonic decay withered throughout the AGO, beckoning the viewer to take a closer look towards the discovery of his precision of detail.

In an age of increasing digital manipulation, photographs such as Burtynsky's might be mistaken for simulated events, in the wake of Andreas Gursky's work. An average viewer might not believe that these "manufactured" landscapes actually exist, for they do not belong to our realm of visual material. The intensity of the rusted colors and vastness of the nickel tailing series presents a dilemma for the artist and his audience: does the viewer take these almost unbelievable events seriously or shove them aside along with the millions of images we are presented daily. Burtynsky's photographs challenge our trust in the integrity of the photographic image and force us to question the ramifications of our excessive, industrial activities. Alas, the irony of this contemporary artist is that he approaches his subjects in the same manner as most 19th century landscape photographers did: the large-format camera, playing as they did with the concepts of beauty, the picturesque and sublime. In doing so, Burtynsky slows down the image and allows time for contemplation, while at the same time he references abstract painting in the scale of his prints. This combination of craft and concept is a well-respected achievement in photography. The elements of detailed documentation, seen with a compassionate eye yield answers to the complicated issues that modern photography strives to approach.

Series after series, Burtynsky evaluates ecological decay and the industrialization of the land, using his large format camera to create visual poetry. It takes a courageous, talented and an experienced artist to describe desecrated oil fields in a poetic manner. Manufactured Landscapes is a testimony to Burtynsky's stature in the photographic world of contemporary landscape. If it is awareness of our land that Edward Burtynsky wishes to bring to the public, his efforts have been acknowledged and his photographs will continue to be noticed for their literally extraordinary subjects, craft and aesthetic value.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Visual Studies Workshop
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