Edward Burtynsky - Photographs New York Tuesday, October 1, 2019 | Phillips

Photographs

New York Auction 1 October 2019

  • Provenance

    Charles Cowles Gallery, New York
    Phillips, New York, Innovators of Photography: A Private East Coast Collection, 8 October 2015, lot 28

  • Exhibited

    Manufactured Landscapes: The Photographs of Edward Burtynsky, Brooklyn Museum, New York, 7 October 2005 - 15 January 2006

  • Literature

    Steidl, Burtynsky: China, p. 97

  • Catalogue Essay

    Edward Burtynsky has devoted his career to documenting human impact upon the planet. His work in China, begun in the early 2000s, has yielded some of the most dramatic photographs in an oeuvre replete with vivid imagery. Burtynsky approaches his subjects armed with in-depth research and then exploits photography’s unique ability to capture extreme detail so that no aspect of his subject goes unrecorded. A master technician, Burtynsky produces large format prints that contain more information than the human eye can process at once. In this carefully ordered photograph of the Deda Chicken Processing Plant, one of China’s largest such facilities, humanity and industry unite on a stunning scale, underscoring their connectivity. His extensive work documenting the Anthropocene epoch has led him to comment, ‘I no longer see my world as delineated by countries, with borders, or languages, but as 6.5 billion humans living off a precariously balanced, finite planet.’

  • Artist Biography

    Edward Burtynsky

    Canadian • 1955

    Universally termed 'industrial landscapes', Edward Burtynsky's photographs are rooted in the complex, symbiotic and, at times, destructive relationship we have with the earth. In depicting his subjects, Burtynsky balances an exacting, documentarian objectivity with a breathtakingly finessed beauty. His oversized works, whose subjects include quarries in Vermont, shipyards in China and oil refineries in Canada, have a sense of grandiosity and monumentality. There is an initial visual appeal of vibrant colors, details and scale; however, on closer inspection, the environmental dilemma unfolds. They are introspective and meditative, capturing a 'contemplative moment' where landscapes provide visual and emotional resonance.

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162

Edward Burtynsky

Manufacturing #17, Deda Chicken Processing Plant, Dehui City, Jilin Province, China

2005
Fujicolor Crystal Archive print.
47 1/4 x 72 3/8 in. (120 x 183.8 cm)
Overall 50 x 74 1/2 in. (127 x 189.2 cm)
Signed in ink, printed title, date and number 2/6 on a label affixed to the reverse of the flush-mount.

Estimate
$30,000 - 50,000 

Sold for $68,750

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Photographs

New York Auction 1 October 2019