Research Catalog

Burtynsky : oil

Title

Burtynsky : oil / photographs, Edward Burtynsky ; essays, Michael Mitchell, William E. Rees, Paul Roth.

Author

Burtynsky, Edward, 1955-

Publication

Göttingen, Germany : Steidl, 2014.
©2014

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Use in library	TR647 .B876 2014q Oversize	Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Description

215 pages : illustrations (chiefly color); 30 x 37 cm

Summary

"Edward Burtynsky's Oil collects a decades' worth of photographing the world's largest oil fields, refineries, freeway interchanges and automobile plants, in an attempt to comprehend the scale of production attending this most politicized of resources. The ideal photographer for this job, Burtynsky locates and documents the sites that urban dwellers never see, and questions human accountability. His imagery is vast in both scale and ambition, revealing the apparatus behind the energy we mine from dwindling resources, and the ongoing effects of the industrial revolution. "In 1997 I had what I refer to as my oil epiphany," Burtynsky explains: "it occurred to me that all the vast, man-altered landscapes I had been in pursuit of for over 20 years were all possible because of the discovery of oil and the mechanical advantage of the internal combustion engine." Burtynsky's epiphany is typical of his desire to lift the scrim of everyday life and reveal the basic resources that keep it in place. What lies beyond is not pretty, and the images in Oil sometimes resemble the post-apocalyptic desert landscapes of Mad Max, with their vast horizons of featureless sand and desert foliage, punctuated by creaky-looking oil machinery. With a unflinching eye, Burtynsky presents us with the reality of oil production as its role in our civilization undergoes massive transformation."--Jacket.

Alternative Title

Oil
Edward Burtynsky : oil

Subject

Genre/Form

exhibition catalogs.
photobooks.
Photobooks.
Exhibition catalogs.
Pictorial works.
Catalogues d'exposition.
Livres de photographies.

Note

Published in conjunction with exhibitions held at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Oct. 3-Dec. 13, 2009 and Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography Amsterdam, Dec. 5, 2009-Feb. 28, 2010.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (page 200).

ISBN

9783865219435
3865219438

OCLC

ocn900281176
900281176
SCSB-14279816

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library