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Edward Burtynsky: Essential Elements

William A. Ewing

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£50.00

A major new retrospective of one of the world’s most acclaimed contemporary art photographers featuring both iconic images and previously unpublished photographs

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Overview

Edward Burtynsky has achieved global recognition for his spectacular, large-scale photographs which depict the impact of human activity upon urban and natural environments around the world. They cover such subjects as mines and quarries, the oil industry, ship-building and ship-breaking, water as a resource under threat worldwide, and an emergent China.

Curated by William A. Ewing, this volume, the first comprehensive survey of Burtynsky’s multi-faceted work in over a decade, includes both iconic images and previously unpublished photographs. Relinquishing the project-based lens through which the photographer’s work has previously been presented – the major monographs Oil and Water being the most recent examples – it presents Burtynsky’s photographs in free-flowing sections which combine and contrast work from throughout his career. This original approach provides a sense of both his visual language and his exploration of the dilemmas at the heart of our globalized world. Each section is interspersed with selected texts which work in concert with the images to provide a context and greater understanding of Burtynsky’s view of the world.

With an introduction by Ewing and an afterword by academic Joshua Schuster, Essential Elements provides an entirely new way of seeing Burtynsky’s work for those who are already familiar with it, as well as an accessible introduction for those encountering his photographs for the first time.

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Reviews

'Awesome'
Guardian

'That attention to detail – the detail where both the humanity and the devil are to be found – is the key to these gorgeous, terrible images, and the heart of the Burtynsky Paradox: you can’t look away; you have to keep looking in'
Robert Shore, Elephant magazine

'A beautiful anthology of Burtynsky’s work. This is much more than just a coffee table book'
GQ

'Beautiful to behold'
What Digital Camera

'Rarely do we have the opportunity to absorb the sheer scale of our impact on the earth… what we have is the 'contemplative moment' - images that require time and thought to truly absorb what it is we're seeing'
Amateur Photographer

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Product Information

Book Details

Format: Hardback

Size: 27.5 x 33.0 cm

Extent: 202 pp

Illustrations: 148

Publication date: 15 September 2016

ISBN: 9780500544617

Contents List

Introduction: William A. Ewing • Plates I: Excerpts I • Plates II: Excerpts II • Plates III: Excerpts III • Plates IV: Excerpts IV • Plates V • Unearthing Photography: Joshua Schuster

About the Author

William A. Ewing has been an author, lecturer, curator of photography and museum director for more than forty years. His many publications on photography include The Body, Landmark and Edward Burtynsky: Essential Elements, all published by Thames & Hudson.

List of Contributors

Joshua Schuster