Fool’s Gold!
Burtynsky’s photos calculate the cost of freedom.
Nick MacMahon, staff
Bryan Adams is a Canadian musical phenomenon. In his glory days, he selflessly lent his husky voice to a best-selling film soundtrack, giving Kevin Costner the confidence to star in countless more classic films. Now, we patiently anticipate Bryan’s second coming (I love you Bry! Just one more hit song!). In the meanwhile, his loyal fan club of aging yuppies will continue to chant his exotic name, throwing rose petals before him to honour his latest artistic conquest: visionary photography. After a strenuous shoot with the meticulous photographer, troubled celebrities emerge as luminous gods and goddesses. Since the dawn of the 21st century, only one Canadian name has risen up to usurp his photogenic throne and bludgeon him with his own guitar-shaped scepter: Burtynsky.
His work is featured in Jennifer Baichwal’s recent breath-taking Canadian documentary, Manufactured Landscapes . Receiving various accolades (from Best Canadian Film at the Toronto International Film Festival to a Grand Jury Prize nomination at the Sundance Film Festival), the film has done wonders for Burtnysky’s career, resulting in his donation of 40 large-scale photographs to the Winnipeg Art Gallery featured in the latest exhibit at the Winnipeg Art Gallery: Edward Burtynsky: In the Pursuit of Progress.
Nearly overshadowed by another exhibit, Subconscious City, the photographs are crammed into the corner of the room and can only be discovered with such an intuitive grasp for navigation that even Samuel de Champlain would be stamping his foot in juvenile protest. I could have asked the security guard for directions, unfortunately she was preoccupied with some walkie-talkie flirtation that only comes from hours of standing idle in a white room, where exit signs can only be a source of arousal. Auspiciously, the poor location is minor razor rash on the silky smooth legs of this glorious collection.
The size of the collection is small enough, allowing for leisurely browsing, unlike other exhibits where a stopwatch set at 30 seconds per piece is merely a survival tactic, much akin to a militant game of Scrabble. So, kick off those shows, slap on some flippers, and let’s proceed with caution, as we dive into a hazardous oil field.
Yup, no celebrities here. Andy Warhol and his passionate disciples (Bryan!) are so 20th century. Environmental devastation photography is a lucrative business. I’d high-five Gore if he was here right now, then I’d crack an obvious joke . . . the silence would finally break with the buzz of a text-message, smiles would be forced.
The large-scale photographs come from Burtynsky’s various series, notably: Three Gorges Dam Project, Marble Quarries, Oil Fields and Oil Refineries, Shipbreaking and Metal Recycling. From China to Ontario, Burtynsky captures the human footprint that has trampled the land so mercilessly since the industrial revolution. From the micro to macro, he merely puts up an objective mirror, reflecting the shadow of our psyche — the severe environmental degradation that will persist and grow like a cancer if we maintain our excessive, unsustainable lifestyles in our pursuit of economic growth. The Marble Quarry series, for example, shows the quarries of Carrara, Italy, which provided the marble for the grand staircase of the Manitoba Legislative Building, as a friendly woman in the gallery pointed out to me. Also, some photos feature mountains of useless scrap metal dumped in China’s backyard, which we westerners are grossly responsible for. This restores some of the balance in the exhibit, which makes China the easy target of criticism — the photos of the Three Gorges Dam Project (along the Yangtze River in China’s Hubei Province) reveal the ruins of countless homes and towns, as more than a million have been displaced by their ruthless government.
China aside, I marvel at the progress, like the modern factory’s metal tubing. Laid out with baffling precision, an intricate network magically comes to life, taking only a few limbs of innocent workers along the way. Many photos will be seared in my memory, not only for their social implications, but for the dashes of radiant colour that peak out of a pile of discarded “non-cordless” phones. After all, this is art, and as far as I understand, timeless art should fall somewhere between a blissful cup of tea on a Monday morning and a savage attack on my alarm clock, sending me into perpetual slumber, or at least until midday.
Like many artists, Burtynsky’s photography succeeds in finding the beauty within the beast, the growth within the decay. However, his message comes with a warning: if we refuse to look at the decay, his exhibits will no longer be possible . . . nor will we.
