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Edward Burtynsky:
China
October 6 – November 5, 2005
EDWARD BURTYNSKY’s photographs, monumental in both scale and subject, capture visions of nature that are outside the realm of ordinary experience. His quest to photograph landscapes which have been reshaped through human industry has taken him to recycling yards, oil refineries, quarries, and shipbreaking beaches.
BURTYNSKY's China series began in 2002 with the Three Gorges Dam Project and the latest work depicts both remnant and newly established zones of Chinese industrialization and its effects on the landscape and its inhabitants. Portraying the extreme expressions of Chinese industry, the photographs offer a privileged glimpse into the vast social and economic transformations currently underway in China.
BURTYNSKY uses a large format viewfinder camera to capture the compositions in situ, creating images that are both striking and unsettling. While maintaining his aesthetic awareness, BURTYNSKY's new China photographs are more frenetic than the earlier works, capturing thousands of workers on the job, eating lunch, and changing shifts in color-coded unison. The busy activity of the state-of-the-art factories contrasts with the antiquated plants and desolate steel mills, which feel deserted in comparison. In continuation of a theme BURTYNSKY explored with his Shipbreaking series of 2000-01, he visited a shipbuilding yard in China where a fleet of freighters are being constructed to service China's growing port network.
A mid-career retrospective, Manufactured Landscapes, organized by the National Gallery of Canada, will be on view at the Brooklyn Museum of Art October 7, 2005 – January 15, 2006. There is a monograph by Lori Pauli accompanying the exhibition with essays by Mark Haworth-Booth & Kenneth Baker and an interview with Michael Torosian (160 pages, $55).
Edward Burtynsky: The China Series will be on view at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, October 22, 2005 – January 8, 2006, and then will travel nationwide. Steidl will release a new monograph, China, with essays by Mark Kingwell, Ted Fishman, Marc Mayer and Edward Burtynsky (180 pages, $85).
BURTYNSKY’s works are included in distinguished museum collections including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
The exhibition will be on view at the Charles Cowles Gallery, 537 West 24th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues in Chelsea. Hours are 10am to 6pm, Tuesday through Saturday.
There will be a reception for the artist on Saturday, October 8, from 6 to 8pm.
For further information or photographs, please contact the gallery.
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