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25/7/2012

Edward Burtynsky

C/O Berlin - International Forum for Visual Dialogues, Berlin

C/O Berlin, International Forum For Visual Dialogues, is pleased to present the exhibition Oil by Canadian photo- grapher Edward Burtynsky from July 27 to September 9, 2012. The opening will take place Thursday, July 26, 2012, at 7 pm at the Postfuhramt, Oranienburger Straße 35/36 in Berlin-Mitte.

“The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”
Tony Hayward, CEO British Petrol

Rusting refinery towers, clogged oil pumps, shining chrome pipelines, smoking refineries—oil rules the world with immense power. For over 100 years, this fossil fuel energy source has been driving the modern world order with its massive, destructive intrusions into nature. The age of oil has burned itself deep into the environment, deforming natural landscapes and dramatically altering human ways of life. And yet the means of its production, the basis of petrochemical civilization and the sweeping consequences thereof remain a terra incognita to this day. Like no other photographer before him, Edward Burtynsky has documented every element of the vast circulatory system that comprises the global oil industry. His large-format photographs reveal in vivid detail the connections between oil con- sumption, oil transport, and oil production, all the way to waste disposal and its ongoing effects on the landscape. In his photographic series, Burtynsky critically interrogates the pursuit of affluence as well as individual actions and their consequences.

“Oil” is a unique cartography of a natural resource that explores its wide-ranging effects in four chapters. In “Extrac- tion & Refinement,” Burtynsky’s focus lies squarely on the conveyance of this resource from barren oil fields all the way to labyrinthine factories. “Transportation & Motor Culture” shows multi-lane highways, with interchanges resem- bling Gordian knots, winding their way through cities and rural landscapes. At the same time, Edward Burtynsky’s photographs of endless row home developments, gigantic parking lots, and amateur car races reveal the ubiquitous dominance of the automobile as a socio-cultural fetish. Garbage dumps for scrapped steel, decommissioned oil rigs, retired airplanes, mountains of old tires and oil-smeared gas barrels—the third chapter, “The End of Oil” shows the dirty side of the production chain in all its brutal environmental destructiveness. The exhibition also includes an additional, current theme: Edward Burtynsky’s “Oil Spills,” depicting the oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico in the year 2010.

With their flawless aesthetic and fascinating beauty, Burtynsky’s panoramas belong to the tradition of nineteenth century landscape painting, yet in complete contrast to its dramatic content. They simultaneously elicit fascination and repulsion, attraction and anxiety. Photographed from a distance or a bird’s-eye perspective, Edward Burtynsky’s subjects, with their finely balanced geometry, take on the appearance of hauntingly beautiful landscapes. Like a pain- ter or sculptor, Burtynsky brings visual abstraction together with perfect visual compositions and soft color transitions that lend his works their contradictory character.

C/O Berlin will be presenting approximately 30 photographs from his series “Oil” for the first time in Berlin. A catalog accompanying the exhibition has been published by Steidl.

Edward Burtynsky (b. 1955 in St. Catharines) began taking photography courses in the early 1970s. He studied gra- phic arts at Niagara Collage in Welland up to 1976. He then completed his bachelor’s degree in Ryerson University in Toronto and started working as a freelance photographer. He holds four honorary doctoral degrees—in law from Queen’s University Kingston and from Mt. Allison University Sackville, New Brunswick, in photography from Ryerson University Toronto, and in fine arts from Montserrat College of Art Boston. In 2005 he received the TED Prize. In April 2006, Edward Burtynsky was named Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2007 he produced the documentary “Ma- nufactured Landscapes” and presented it at the Sundance Festival. His series “Oil,” “Quarry,” “Mines,” and “Home- steads” have been shown worldwide—at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum New York, in the National Gallery of Canada, and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, among other venues. Edward Burtynsky lives and works in Toronto.

Organizer C/O Berlin
International Forum For Visual Dialogues

Catalog Steidl Verlag . 2009
215 pages . 98 Euro

Lecture with Edward Burtynsky
Friday, July 27, 2012 . 20 Uhr
Lecture Admission 10 Euro . reduced 5 Euro . No press tickets available
Pre-sale starts on Monday, July 16, 2012

Press contact Mirko Nowak
Phone 030.28 44 41 641 . press@co-berlin.com
Auguststraße 5a . 10117 Berlin
www.co-berlin.com

Opening Thursday, July 26, 2012 . 7 pm

C/O Berlin at the Postfuhramt
Oranienburger Straße 35/36 . 10117 Berlin
Opening hours daily . 11 am to 8 pm
Admission 10 Euro . reduced 5 Euro

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