Edward Burtynsky
Water
24 October–14 December, 2013
Opening: 7 November, 5:30–7:30pm,
artist walk-through 6–7pm
Rena Bransten Gallery
77 Geary Street
San Francisco
Hours: Tuesday–Friday 10:30am–5:30pm,
Saturday 11am–5pm
T +1 415 982 3292
info [at] renabranstengallery.com
“While trying to accommodate the growing needs of an expanding—and very thirsty—civilization we are reshaping the Earth in colossal ways. Over five years, I have explored water in various aspects: distress, control, agriculture, aquaculture, waterfront, and source. We have to learn to think more long-term about the consequences of what we are doing, while we are doing it. My hope is that these pictures will stimulate a process of thinking about something essential to our survival, something we often take for granted—until it’s gone.”
–Edward Burtynsky
Shooting in ten different countries for Water, Burtynsky’s large vista photographs investigate the impact of human intervention on this natural resource. Pivot irrigation sites in Texas, dry-land farming in Spain, the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the dry beds of the Colorado River Delta are transformed into abstractions as captured by Burtynsky’s aerial perspective. He has additionally photographed millions of people bathing in the sacred Ganges in India; the mega-dam construction on the upper Yangtze; the once-per-year silt release on the Yellow River in China; and waterfront leisurescapes like those in Benidorm, Spain—documenting our innumerable cultural, physical, and social dependencies on water while representing the effects of these relationships.
Edward Burtynsky has a concurrent exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art at the Contemporary Arts Center. The Water series is accompanied by a fine art book published by Steidl, a multi-media version of the book as an app for iPad, and the soon-to-be-released film Watermark.
For further information, please contact the gallery at info [at] renabranstengallery.com or T +1 415 982 3292.
