Opening Reception Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery
26 October, 6 – 8 pm
Opening Reception Howard Greenberg Gallery
27 October, 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Howard Greenberg Gallery and Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery are pleased to present their first
exhibitions of work by Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky. For more than 25 years
Burtynsky's work has consistently pushed the boundaries of contemporary photography and
social awareness. His large-format color photographs of global industrial landscapes and
nature transformed have the capacity to both unsettle and inspire. The exhibition at Howard
Greenberg Gallery will be an overview of Burtynsky's vast bodies of work, while Bryce
Wolkowitz Gallery will focus on his latest series, Monegros.
Edward Burtynsky has turned his lens on some of the world's largest industrial operations. His
images explore the complex relationship between industry and nature, finding beauty in unlikely
places. His range of subject matter has included the oil industry, mining, tire disposal, ship
breaking, the railways, and most recently, dry land farming in Northern Spain.
In September 2010, Burtynsky began photographing agricultural areas in Spain including
Monegros, a hilly, semi-desert region with extreme climatic conditions. Drawn to the complex,
organic expansion of farming areas, Burtynsky photographed these patterned crop fields from
a 2,000 foot aerial view. The resulting photographs are his most abstract work to date. The
twisted lines and bold patches of color and texture form patterns which are reminiscent of
paintings by Kandinsky, Miro, and Dubuffet, as well as primitive art andcave drawings. The
Monegros series is born of a larger series on water which Burtynsky will release in 2013.
Burtynsky extensively researches his subjects before shooting, working at sun up and sun down
using natural scaffolding and shooting with a large format view-finder camera to capture the
grand scale of his subjects.
Born in 1955, in Ontario Canada, Burtynsky began his career photographing the natural
landscape of his homeland, only to see that landscape gradually and drastically altered by man
and industry. His focus quickly shifted to the man made industrial landscapes around the world,
often taking that a step further to examine how these industries affect our day to day lives. His
work is included in over fifty major museums including the National Gallery of Canada, the
Bibliotèque Nationale in Paris, Reina Sofia Museum Madrid, Madrid, and the Museum of
Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. In 2005 he was honored with a
prestigious TED prize, and in 2007 was the focus of an award wining documentary film,
Manufactured Landscapes. Exhibitions include Oil (2009) at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in
Washington D.C., Manufactured Landscapes at the Brooklyn Museum and the National Gallery
of Canada (2003 - 2005), Before the Flood (2003), and China (2005 - 2008).
Burtynsky's distinctions include The Governor General's Award, The Outreach award at the
Recontres d'Arles, The Flying Elephant Fellowship, Applied Arts Magazine book awards, and the
Roloff Beny Book Award.
For further information, please contact Ali Price
at ali@howardgreenberg.com or 212. 334. 0010
Howard Greenberg
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