words, pictures.

Edward Burtynsky is a working photographer based in Canada, and was also the subject of the unnerving but fascinating 2006 documentary 'Manufactured Landscapes.' The film begins by chronicling Burtynsky's exploration of the space where art meets industry--extraction processes, which violate the natural world, produce unexpected symmetry and surreally beautiful color. It made me think about the slow transition from something like the Hudson River School, where naturalism--which obviously gave way to photo realism--was the ideal, to now, where our national economic and technological ideals supersede our reverence for the natural environment. And, to this end, how photos like Burtynsky's are giving us a new artistic landscape: painters and photographers can no longer use art as a bourgeoisie distraction or hobby; rather, they have to confront the viewer with an aesthetic, as well as a representation of a country's collective ethic. Travelling from urban mines and quarries in Vermont to the Three Gorges Dam in China, Burtynsky makes an implicit statement that business is proactive, whereas art is reactive. And it made me wonder how those constructs came to exist; i.e. could the reverse ever be true, at this point in civilization? Anyway, 'Manufactured Landscapes' also looks at the (to my mind) depressing economic climate of China and the ongoing development of the aforementioned dam. (I am putting some of his images here, now, because I only recently remembered the guy's name.) The original prints are large-format.