Latest news with #InternationalCenterofPhotography
The Guardian
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Edward Burtynsky: ‘My photographs are like Rorschach tests'
Few if any photographers have done more than Edward Burtynsky to shape our view of the large-scale industrial production that is a constant, ever-expanding part of the capitalist system. Since the 1980s, he has created more than a dozen multiyear series, tackling extractive industries like mining and oil refining in India, China and Azerbaijan, traveling to such disparate places as Western Australia, Chile's Atacama desert and the so-called ship graveyards of Bangladesh. Often taken from high in the sky, his photos offer views of industrial landscapes that attend to color and pattern with a sophisticated eye reminiscent of abstract expressionism, while also forcing us to contend with the devastating transformations to the natural world required to sustain our way of life. Burtynsky's new show at the International Center of Photography in New York, titled The Great Acceleration, brings together some 70 photographs from a lifetime behind the lens. It seeks to offer a fitting survey of a masterful photographic career, and it debuts the largest photographic mural that Burtynsky has ever done. His relationship with the medium began when he was about 12, when he got his first camera. As a young child, he spent hour upon hour painting alongside his father, who had hoped to become an artist but ended up working in factories. After he learned to painstakingly sketch landscapes and paint with oils, the ease of photographs was a revelation. 'I just realized how in one fraction of a second I can create a landscape – just, boom, it's there,' Burtynsky told me. 'I loved how it was a modern, fast way to get your image, and I loved the darkroom, watching the image emerge.' Similarly, Burtynsky's relationship with the industrial world that has become his subject goes back to his formative years – originally trained as a tool and die maker, he came of age working within factories, seeing first-hand just how dirty, loud and dangerous they really were. 'When I saw the scale of industry, as a young 18-year-old working in these places,' Burtynsky said, 'I could tell that if we were going to become this population of all this growth that they were projecting, then all of this was just going to amplify, this all was just going to get bigger and more insane.' Turning away from such a life, Burtynsky began to study the graphic arts, and after a well-timed push from one of his instructors, he made the decision to receive formal instruction in photography. After spending so much time around heavy industry, he said, it was a revelation: 'All of a sudden, I'm exposed to the whole history of art, and the whole history of music, and the whole history of photography.' It was in school that Burtynsky got exposure to major influences like Eadweard Muybridge, Carleton Watkins, Caspar David Friedrich and painters of the New York school, particularly Jackson Pollock. It was there that he also began to develop his distinctive way of seeing the world. 'I really liked the kind of field painting, the compression of space, the gesture, the color fields, in abstract expressionism,' he said. 'So I started doing landscapes, but I said: 'I'm not just going to go out into the forest and do cliches like anybody else. I'm going to go and try to do Jackson Pollocks with a large-format camera. I'm going to try to attune my eye so I can find really complex spaces in nature that are almost like gesture paintings.'' In no small part because of that painterly eye, Burtynsky imbues his work with an undeniable beauty, a fact that has sometimes made critics uneasy. Shots like that of a enormous stepwell in Rajasthan, or the Chino mine in Silver City, New Mexico, are mesmerizing in their intricacy, their arrangement of color and the hypnotic way that Burtynsky has framed the innumerable lines within. If his photographs of environmental destruction are gorgeous, Burtynsky defends them on the ground that this pleasingness evokes the curiosity and engagement that leads to potentially fruitful dialogue. 'There are all sorts of issues that start to rise up. Like: are you aestheticizing the destruction of the planet?' he said. 'Well, that's not how I'm looking at it. But maybe. I'm really trying to find a visual language that has a painterly or surreal quality to it that shows the world we've evolved in a way that makes people engage with it, versus saying: 'That's just a banal picture of something that I'm not interested in.'' Burtynsky is clear about the fact that his images are meant to be not didactic but enigmatic, entry points and not endpoints. Although it is difficult to look at shots such as a wasteland full of discarded tires or a mountainside honeycombed by extractive mining without feeling a gut reaction of shame and eco-anxiety, his photographs are much more than just environmentalist agitprop. The artist takes pride in the many interpretations that his works can hold. 'My photographs are like Rorschach tests,' he said. 'It's like the teacher puts a picture in front of the class and it's like: what did you see? If they see environmental degradation, they see something out of the history of art. If they see something, like, technologically kind of advanced, or some curious way in which we do things as humans, each one of them is a legitimate reading of what they're seeing – the individual completes it. When people tell me about what they see in an image, I get to learn more about them than they probably learn about me.' In addition to delivering some of Burtynsky's most career-defining works, The Great Acceleration also shows lesser-known sides of the photographer – there are two pieces from his student days, a shot from a rarely seen series that he made exploring masculinity via taxidermy workshops, and never-before-shown portraits of individual workers who toil within the built landscapes that he specializes in. 'I would walk through these landscapes with my 2 1/4 camera, and every once in a while I'd see a person and say: 'Can I take your photograph?' It was always an acknowledgement of the sitter in their space, and just another way of showing that these are things that humans are doing,' he said. Burtynsky hopes that shows like The Great Acceleration offer a way to let a wider audience see what is happening in the world. He remains doubtful of art's ability to directly transform how governments and industry use our resources, but he does believe in the value of raising awareness and sparking curiosity. 'Artists are soft power, we're storytellers, we don't have the ability to influence or shape policy. What we can do is raise consciousness, absorb our experience of the world and move it through the medium of our choice. I'm trying to be a kind of conduit into what is happening.' Edward Burtynsky: The Great Acceleration is on show at the International Center of Photography in New York until 28 September
The Guardian
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Edward Burtynsky: ‘My photographs are like Rorschach tests'
Few if any photographers have done more than Edward Burtynsky to shape our view of the large-scale industrial production that is a constant, ever-expanding part of the capitalist system. Since the 1980s, he has created more than a dozen multiyear series, tackling extractive industries like mining and oil refining in India, China and Azerbaijan, traveling to such disparate places as Western Australia, Chile's Atacama desert and the so-called ship graveyards of Bangladesh. Often taken from high in the sky, his photos offer views of industrial landscapes that attend to color and pattern with a sophisticated eye reminiscent of abstract expressionism, while also forcing us to contend with the devastating transformations to the natural world required to sustain our way of life. Burtynsky's new show at the International Center of Photography in New York, titled The Great Acceleration, brings together some 70 photographs from a lifetime behind the lens. It seeks to offer a fitting survey of a masterful photographic career, and it debuts the largest photographic mural that Burtynsky has ever done. His relationship with the medium began when he was about 12, when he got his first camera. As a young child, he spent hour upon hour painting alongside his father, who had hoped to become an artist but ended up working in factories. After he learned to painstakingly sketch landscapes and paint with oils, the ease of photographs was a revelation. 'I just realized how in one fraction of a second I can create a landscape – just, boom, it's there,' Burtynsky told me. 'I loved how it was a modern, fast way to get your image, and I loved the darkroom, watching the image emerge.' Similarly, Burtynsky's relationship with the industrial world that has become his subject goes back to his formative years – originally trained as a tool and die maker, he came of age working within factories, seeing first-hand just how dirty, loud and dangerous they really were. 'When I saw the scale of industry, as a young 18-year-old working in these places,' Burtynsky said, 'I could tell that if we were going to become this population of all this growth that they were projecting, then all of this was just going to amplify, this all was just going to get bigger and more insane.' Turning away from such a life, Burtynsky began to study the graphic arts, and after a well-timed push from one of his instructors, he made the decision to receive formal instruction in photography. After spending so much time around heavy industry, he said, it was a revelation: 'All of a sudden, I'm exposed to the whole history of art, and the whole history of music, and the whole history of photography.' It was in school that Burtynsky got exposure to major influences like Eadweard Muybridge, Carleton Watkins, Caspar David Friedrich and painters of the New York school, particularly Jackson Pollock. It was there that he also began to develop his distinctive way of seeing the world. 'I really liked the kind of field painting, the compression of space, the gesture, the color fields, in abstract expressionism,' he said. 'So I started doing landscapes, but I said: 'I'm not just going to go out into the forest and do cliches like anybody else. I'm going to go and try to do Jackson Pollocks with a large-format camera. I'm going to try to attune my eye so I can find really complex spaces in nature that are almost like gesture paintings.'' In no small part because of that painterly eye, Burtynsky imbues his work with an undeniable beauty, a fact that has sometimes made critics uneasy. Shots like that of a enormous stepwell in Rajasthan, or the Chino mine in Silver City, New Mexico, are mesmerizing in their intricacy, their arrangement of color and the hypnotic way that Burtynsky has framed the innumerable lines within. If his photographs of environmental destruction are gorgeous, Burtynsky defends them on the ground that this pleasingness evokes the curiosity and engagement that leads to potentially fruitful dialogue. 'There are all sorts of issues that start to rise up. Like: are you aestheticizing the destruction of the planet?' he said. 'Well, that's not how I'm looking at it. But maybe. I'm really trying to find a visual language that has a painterly or surreal quality to it that shows the world we've evolved in a way that makes people engage with it, versus saying: 'That's just a banal picture of something that I'm not interested in.'' Burtynsky is clear about the fact that his images are meant to be not didactic but enigmatic, entry points and not endpoints. Although it is difficult to look at shots such as a wasteland full of discarded tires or a mountainside honeycombed by extractive mining without feeling a gut reaction of shame and eco-anxiety, his photographs are much more than just environmentalist agitprop. The artist takes pride in the many interpretations that his works can hold. 'My photographs are like Rorschach tests,' he said. 'It's like the teacher puts a picture in front of the class and it's like: what did you see? If they see environmental degradation, they see something out of the history of art. If they see something, like, technologically kind of advanced, or some curious way in which we do things as humans, each one of them is a legitimate reading of what they're seeing – the individual completes it. When people tell me about what they see in an image, I get to learn more about them than they probably learn about me.' In addition to delivering some of Burtynsky's most career-defining works, The Great Acceleration also shows lesser-known sides of the photographer – there are two pieces from his student days, a shot from a rarely seen series that he made exploring masculinity via taxidermy workshops, and never-before-shown portraits of individual workers who toil within the built landscapes that he specializes in. 'I would walk through these landscapes with my 2 1/4 camera, and every once in a while I'd see a person and say: 'Can I take your photograph?' It was always an acknowledgement of the sitter in their space, and just another way of showing that these are things that humans are doing,' he said. Burtynsky hopes that shows like The Great Acceleration offer a way to let a wider audience see what is happening in the world. He remains doubtful of art's ability to directly transform how governments and industry use our resources, but he does believe in the value of raising awareness and sparking curiosity. 'Artists are soft power, we're storytellers, we don't have the ability to influence or shape policy. What we can do is raise consciousness, absorb our experience of the world and move it through the medium of our choice. I'm trying to be a kind of conduit into what is happening.' Edward Burtynsky: The Great Acceleration is on show at the International Center of Photography in New York until 28 September
National Geographic
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- National Geographic
These photos show all the beautiful, terrible ways humans are changing the Earth
Ahead of his first solo exhibition in 20 years, legendary photographer Edward Burtynsky opens up his search for wonder and the "alien" approach he takes behind the lens. Pacific Palisades Fire Aftermath #1, California, USA, 2025 Photographs by Edward Burtynsky IN 1976 EDWARD BURTYNSKY attended his first photography class as a young art student in Toronto. His very first assignment: Go out and capture a subject that represented the 'evidence of Man.' After nearly five decades, copious awards, and countless images of the impact of human life (as we'd now phrase it) it's safe to say Burtynsky gets a passing grade. 'That assignment sort of gave me a hall pass,' the photographer, now 70, says. 'I kept thinking as if I were an alien, sent to Earth by some other intelligence to see what we're doing to the planet. What were the images I'd make to send back to say, Hey, this is what they're up to?' Photographer Edward Burtynsky Photograph by Hannah Whitaker He's pursued that mission from the pit mines of Pennsylvania to the salt pans of Gujarat, the marble quarries of Italy to the large-scale manufacturing factories of China, with dozens of destinations in between. The resulting images, rendered in huge format, are often surreal, painterly, uncanny. Their otherworldly landscapes have the twin effect of disorienting the viewer while also emphasizing our intimate connections to corners of the globe that usually remain out of sight: A ribbon of water near a nickel mine in Ontario glows orange, at once beautiful and toxic; decommissioned oil tankers loom like ancient monuments on the shores of Bangladesh, where they're taken to be disassembled; an aerial shot of an Arizona suburb and a neighboring Native American reservation reveals a border as defined and insurmountable as any wall. Salt River Pima and Maricopa Indian Community / Suburb, Scottsdale, Arizona, USA, 2011 Nickel Tailings #34, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, 1996 On June 19, New York's International Center of Photography (ICP) will debut a new career-spanning exhibit of Burtynsky's work, featuring some 70 images, three high-resolution murals, and a large panorama. The show is titled 'Edward Burtynsky: The Great Acceleration,' a term scientists use for the exponential growth of human population and impact on the planet beginning in the mid 20th century. Like a good Canadian, Burtynsky describes this growth curve as 'a hockey stick pointing straight up.' 'It's technological expansion coupled with human expansion,' he says. 'My whole thing has been a meditation on how to represent this through the photograph.' Burtynsky looks back on his career, from early inspirations to recent work photographing the aftermath of this year's devastating Los Angeles fires—images seen for the first time in this National Geographic exclusive. Dry Tailings #1, Kolwezi, Democratic Republic of Congo, 2024 This exhibition includes several never before seen images. Can you describe one? There's a panoramic one from a mine in the DRC [Democratic Republic of the Congo] that I shot about five or six months ago. It's a hillside where they dump dry tailings—all oranges and yellows and reds and ochres. Dry tailings are the rocks from mines that don't have any value, before they get to the valuable rock. But in these dry tailings, there's cobalt. The local townspeople go in there and gather it and sell it at the end of the day. Almost all phones have cobalt in them—and a lot of that cobalt comes from the DRC. It's this very interesting reconnection to a landscape that's outside of our purview but in which each of us participate every day. Mines have been a through line of your work since the very beginning. What is it about them that attracts you? I worked as a miner in Canada to put myself through school. Twice a day I would walk a mile down stairs into the shaft. I thought it was an interesting place, but I didn't think it was a subject for the world of art. It was only in 1981, when I bumped into a mining area in Pennsylvania, that I had a eureka moment. Mining is interesting to me, because it's something we all do—whether it's mining our talents, or mining our ideas. You take something that is everyday and turn it into something that is valuable. I said to myself, 'I'm going to do the same thing. I'm going to find a moment in a refinery. I'm going to find a moment in a factory. I'm going to find a moment at a dam in China.' My whole process has been a process of mining. Chino Mine #3, Silver City, New Mexico, USA, 2012 Mines #13, Inco - Abandoned Mine Shaft, Crean Hill Mine, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, 1984 It's striking that humanity and its effects are all over your work, but there are relatively few humans in the photos. It's funny you say that because in this particular exhibition [curator] David Campany actually included a big section of portraits that I took throughout China, Bangladesh, and other places. I've always done portraits, but the work I've really wanted to do has been about the collective impact of human effort and human enterprise, written on the landscape. It's why I photograph big cities versus just somebody on the street in the city. If we think of the sublime, in the traditional sense of the word, it's nature that is the omnipresent force, whether it's gale-force winds, or a hurricane, or volcano or a ship lost at sea. And we are diminished and in awe of this force. What I started to realize was that we ourselves are becoming sublime. That we are dwarfed by our own creations. We are working at a scale that is changing the planet: We're diminishing life in the oceans, mountain glaciers are melting, forests are disappearing, and all of that is happening at a rapid pace. It's like we've entered the technological sublime. We're now small players in the theater of our own making. Manufacturing #7, Textile Mill, Xiaoxing, Zhejiang Province, China, 2004 Do you find that overwhelming? Like how do you get up in the morning? It's an observation. What's the old saying: May you live in interesting times. Well, I'm living in them. It does feel as though your life has been perfectly synced to observe this 'great acceleration.' I think somewhere in the 1800s we hit our first billion people. By the time I was born, in 1955, it was like 2.6 billion. And then, for my whole life, there's been almost a billion added every decade. I was born in the very epicenter of the baby boom, so in a way I always had confidence that if I just stuck to my guns, eventually people would figure out what I'm doing—that I'm just following this crazy situation. Breezewood, Pennsylvania, USA, 2008 Telephones #21, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, 1997 When you started out, what artists were you looking to for inspiration? I loved Edward Weston—almost more than I liked Ansel Adams. I liked Frederick Sommer. I liked the industrialists, like Albert Renger-Patzsch and Charles Sheeler. I was looking at Frank Gohlke, Robert Adams, and all those guys doing a kind of landscape-as-critique. I loved Casper David Friedrich as a painter. I loved Abstract Expressionism, which I ended up incorporating a lot into my work. The history of painting, the history of photography, music, film… I was just gobbling it all up. It gave me all these ways of thinking about how one can make visuals in the world. Shipbreaking #23, Chittagong, Bangladesh, 2000 Have you ever worried that your work may be too beautiful, that the beauty might obscure the message? It's interesting that photography seems to carry this kind of oversized ethical dilemma. No one would ever think of criticizing, for instance, Apocalypse Now, even though [director Francis Ford] Coppola went and made all the frames and lighting and motion and movement too beautiful for the horrific story. Nobody would question Shakespeare's prose in Richard III or Macbeth, which are both about man's treachery to fellow man. Using an aesthetic in other forms seems to be less of a question. Ultimately, I wasn't really in search of beauty, per se, but more in search of wonder: What is going on here? Look at how this comes together! As a visual artist, I am going to use color, texture, compositional tools, light…. It's like breaking into a safe, but you need to find the right combination. And using a large-format camera automatically puts you into an almost formal mindset. You don't shoot from the hip like Garry Winogrand. You contemplate it. You consider when the light will be right. Where to stand. How to frame it. What lens to use. All those things are like a methodology: a slow and steady and contemplative way in which you approach the subject. When digital and aerial came along, I kept the same principles. Now, even if I'm bouncing around on a helicopter, gyrostabilizing my camera and trying to get the pilot to the right place, the effect should be that I shot it with a tripod. Has the prevalence and familiarity of drone shots made it more difficult to create arresting images in that way? Somebody told me the other day that there's something akin to two trillion images a year being taken. Ninety-three percent of those are taken on mobile phones. So, yes, there's more aerial pictures, but there's just more pictures. How did people who wrote before the Gutenberg press feel when it showed up? I think at a certain point, it's less about any individual image and more about how you put it together. It's the meaning that you're building. It's the stories that you're telling. Modjo-Hawassa Expressway #1, Alem Tena, Ethiopia, 2018 Pivot Irrigation #8, High Plains, Texas Panhandle, USA, 2012 How did you come to take such haunting aerial shots of the aftermath of the recent Los Angeles fires? I was in the area for another reason, about three weeks after the fires. I thought about these Santa Ana winds blowing a hundred miles per hour—just the sheer ferocity of what occurred there. I was sort of stunned at the scale of it. I'd never really flown over that amount of human loss. I can only imagine how many families are going to have their lives permanently changed by this. I asked around, and people still didn't want to attribute it to climate change and the difference in weather patterns. It's hard to find people to say, Wait a minute, these things are far more vicious and dangerous with the new conditions. Given some of the recent discourse between the U.S. and Canada, did you consider not traveling to New York for the exhibition opening? No, I'm going to come. I've been working toward this exhibition with the ICP for seven or eight years now. And frankly, I think that now more than ever there's a real importance to keep the conversation going. Our real problems are not going away. You can reverse political problems, you can reverse economic problems, but when things happen to our climate, there's nothing in our tool kit to reverse that. I know things seem hopeless, but this too shall pass. And when that happens, we'll still be in that place, asking, What have we done? This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Photographs © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.
Morocco World
03-06-2025
- General
- Morocco World
Rabat Hosts Exhibition of Reza, Exploring Human Condition Through Image
Rabat – The Contemporary Odyssey of REZA is exhibited at the National Photography Museum in Rabat. Housed in the Fort Rottemburg, this exhibit takes war-time photographs from renowned photojournalist Reza Deghati to promote peace and humanity within its stony historic walls. The Contemporary Odyssey of REZA in Rabat. Photo credit: Emma de Jong The exhibit explores the themes of war, peace, education, and love through seven rooms of photos alongside their stories. It is an exploration of the human condition, including that of the viewer, through a hallway of mirrors and pensive quotes by influential authors and philosophers like Rumi, Ibn Arabi, Antoine de Saint Exupéry, and Victor Hugo. The Contemporary Odyssey of REZA in Rabat. Photo credit: Emma de Jong Outside, on the walls of the fort, a mosaic of portraits of people from around the world showcases the variety and presence of a common human experience. Reza Deghati is a French-Iranian photojournalist who has spent over three decades capturing moments of conflict and resilience across hundreds of countries from all over the world. The Contemporary Odyssey of REZA in Rabat. Photo credit: Emma de Jong Largely documenting chaos and catastrophe, Reza has used photography to showcase the peace and poetry hidden in the darkest hours of people's lives, using his images to elevate their stories. The Contemporary Odyssey of REZA in Rabat. Photo credit: Emma de Jong Reza's work is prominently featured in international media, documentaries, and exhibitions globally. He has written 30 books and won numerous awards celebrating his positive contributions to humanity, such as the Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography and an honorary degree of Doctor Honoris Causa from the American University of Paris. France named him a Chevalier of the National Order of Merit in 2005. The Contemporary Odyssey of REZA in Rabat. Photo credit: Emma de Jong Tags: ArtexhibitiongalleryRabat
Time of India
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Blake Lively snubs Taylor Swift for girls' night with sisters amid sexual assault scandal as Travis Kelce appears solo in Las Vegas
Blake Lively's outing follows reports of her halted friendship with Taylor Swift (Getty Images) Blake Lively appeared to be embracing family time as she stepped out for a girls' night with her sisters, Robyn and Lori Lively, in New York City—just as headlines swirl around her fractured friendship with Taylor Swift and her legal feud with director Justin Baldoni . The 'Gossip Girl' alum took to Instagram Stories over the weekend, sharing a vibrant group selfie from their visit to the International Center of Photography. The trio showed off their tight-knit bond while supporting Blake's close friends, photographers Anna Palma and Guy Aroch, during the launch of their decade-long collaboration with Coca-Cola. Family support comes as Lively's friendship with Taylor Swift hits pause The timing of Blake's public family outing is telling. It comes on the heels of reports that her once-celebrated friendship with pop icon Taylor Swift has 'halted.' According to a Swift insider via People, 'Taylor wants no part in this drama.' by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like This Device Made My Power Bill Drop Overnight elecTrick - Save upto 80% on Power Bill Pre-Order Undo This rift reportedly emerged after Baldoni's legal team subpoenaed Swift to testify in the upcoming sexual harassment trial involving Blake and the "Jane the Virgin" actor. The subpoena was filed on May 8, pulling the global superstar into a lawsuit she had no direct involvement with. A spokesperson for Swift made it clear: 'Taylor Swift never set foot on the set of this movie... she never saw an edit or made any notes on the film.' They emphasized that Swift was 'traveling around the globe during 2023 and 2024 headlining the biggest tour in history' and had no creative stake in It Ends With Us—the film at the center of the legal dispute. Blake Lively's team hasn't stayed silent. A rep for the actress condemned Baldoni's actions, stating, 'The defendants continue to publicly intimidate, bully, shame and attack women's rights and reputations.' The rep further accused Baldoni and his legal team of attempting to dismantle a powerful California victims' rights law, calling their tactics "disturbing." Adding another layer to the unfolding drama, NFL star Travis Kelce recently unfollowed Ryan Reynolds on Instagram, fueling speculation about where loyalties lie amid the growing tension. The move didn't go unnoticed by fans, especially considering Reynolds is not only Blake Lively's husband but was also named in Justin Baldoni's $400 million defamation lawsuit. While neither Kelce nor Swift has publicly addressed the social media snub, the timing—following Swift's subpoena and her reported distancing from Lively—has led many to believe it signals deeper divisions within their once-close celebrity circle. Also Read: Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce breathe easier after judge's ruling eases legal tensions involving Blake Lively As the March 2026 trial looms, Lively is leaning on family and trusted friends, while navigating a high-profile legal battle and a strained friendship with one of pop culture's biggest stars. Get IPL 2025 match schedules , squads , points table , and live scores for CSK , MI , RCB , KKR , SRH , LSG , DC , GT , PBKS , and RR . Check the latest IPL Orange Cap and Purple Cap standings.
