Manufactured Landscapes: The Photographs of Edward Burtynsky
Through January 15, 2006
Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing, 5th Floor
The first major retrospective of the internationally renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky will bring together more than 60 works by the Toronto-born artist from both public and private collections.
Burtynsky, a modern-day counterpart to nineteenth-century landscape photographers, examines the intersection between land and technology, creating images of unorthodox beauty. His subjects include locations that have been changed by modern industrial activity such as mining, quarrying, rail cutting, recycling, and oil refining.
Several adventurous projects have taken Burtynsky on a worldwide quest to photograph extraordinary landscapes. Most recently, he traveled to the construction site of the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydroelectric engineering project, located on the Yangtze River in the People’s Republic of China. The dam is of unprecedented proportions, and it has required the relocation of millions of people. In addition to the dam itself, Burtynsky also photographed upriver sites of mass displacement, where residents destroyed their own homes at the behest of the government, recycling many of the materials in order to rebuild on higher ground.