"Visions and Views: The Architecture of Borromini in the Phortographs of Edward Burtynsky"
2001-06-29 until 2001-09-09
Winnipeg Art Gallery
Winnipeg, MB, CA Canada

In this exhibition contemporary Toronto photographer Edward Burtynsky captures the interplay of light and space and the sculptural expressiveness in the work of the Baroque architect Francesco Borromini (1599-1667).

Burtynsky joins the long line of individuals who have made the pilgrimage to Rome to photograph its splendid art and architecture. Accompanied by Joseph Connors, historian of art and architecture, he photographed several of Borromini’s buildings. This exhibition of 23 colour and black and white photographs captures the dynamics so characteristic of Borromini’s architecture—its great sculptural expressiveness and rigorous integration of geometry. Burtynsky’s choice of viewpoint, framing, and the format of his prints play a decisive role in representing the subtleties among these architectural elements.

According to Ricardo L. Castro of the Montreal Gazette, Burtynsky pays tribute to Borromini in many ways. His precise images pick up the grain and texture of the materials favoured by the architect…and seem to come alive through an unexpected and innate complicity between the architect and the photographer.

Edward Burtynsky was born in Saint Catharines, Ontario, in 1955. He graduated from Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto where, in 1982, he held his first solo exhibition, Landscapes & Greenhouses. Along with Robert Burley and Geoffrey James, Burtynsky is an important figure within contemporary Canadian photography whose work focuses on landscapes shaped by individuals and industries. Burtynsky has photographed stacks of compacted and compressed metal (Urban Mines, 1998), nickel tailings of surface soil (Tailings, 1996), the strata of stone and marble quarries (Quarries, 1995; The Carrara Marble Quarries, 1994; and Stone Quarries, 1993), and landscapes disrupted by railway lines (Breaking Ground, 1988). In all these images, Burtynsky invites the viewer to contemplate the colourful and formal splendors of devastated sites.

This exhibition was organized by the Centre Canadien d'Architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal. It is made possible by a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts.

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for Canada

Other Important Exhibitions in Winnipeg