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Indepth Arts News:
"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.
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