Skip to main content
Alt Text

Zoom

Socar Oil Fields #6, Baku, Azerbaijan

2006

Edward Burtynsky

Photography

109 x 159,5 cm

Devoid of any image manipulation when capturing environmental chaos as shown in these Baku oilfields, Burtynsky’s photographs could be termed documentary. Yet the artistic force of these images confer a metaphorical power upon them at the same as propelling them towards abstraction.


Text : Carole Vantroys.
Translation : Pamela Hargreaves.
Edward Burtynsky
Canada
Born in 1955
Born 1955 in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.
Lives and works in Toronto.

From his childhood in Ontario, spent amongst steelworks, electric power stations and other petrochemical factories, Edward Burtynsky has retained a taste for exploring the relationship between the Earth and technology. From Australian silver mines and Carrara marble quarries to Californian oilfields and the gigantic Three Gorges Dam construction site in China, his photographs of landscapes, whether disfigured, excavated or strewn with litter, all highlight the impact that industrial activity has had on the environment. At once appealing and repulsive, seductive and fearsome, his strikingly detailed photographs raise questions about the ecological upheavals caused by man.


Text : Carole Vantroys.
Translation : Pamela Hargreaves.

Visit the Collection

Book a visit

The visit of the Collection is open to you! Come alone, in a group or on a school outing !
 

Reservation is mandatory in order to offer you a guided tour, at La Défense or by videoconference.