There are new photos on Burtynsky’s site. These are Australian mines. That first photo reminds me of Diebenkorn. The series in general recalls Maisel, of course.
Not long after I wrote about how tired I was of large scale photos, my art history professor, knowing of my interest in Burtynsky, sent me a link to an interview with him in The Morning News about his newly finished project on oil.
He talked about the project itself:
I started thinking about oil as a theme in ’95 and actually started shooting it in ’97. The thing that occurred to me was that everything I was photographing before was somehow linked. All roads led back to oil as a source of energy that allows this kind of scaled expression to occur: our cities and our roadways and our bridges.
It’s been a difficult project to try and get the photographs. There’s been a reluctance to let photographers into these worlds, but there’s nothing that you couldn’t just go on Google Images, look for oil industries, and see all you want to see, whether it’s oil rigs or oil fields or whatever.
I think that the people working in these places are always fascinated by the process because, generally speaking, nobody goes and photographs these places. So they rarely ever see anybody, you know, paying that kind of attention to the thing that they do. They want to see my Polaroids, they want to talk to me, they want to know what I’m doing and who I’m working for. I’m not working for a magazine, I’m not working for a paper, I’m not working for the company. I’m doing it all on my own initiatives and that’s often very interesting to them.
He also talks about where he sees himself on that false polarity of art/documentary, which was a particularly interesting read for me:
Editorial expressions of that work through other media and the web are all surrogates, experiences of the work, which also disseminate, but it’s not what I work towards. I work towards the prints in galleries which people can experience for as long as they want, absorbing the image.
I do share some moral things with journalism. I think I tell stories, but they’re not current events. There is no news flash here, nor is it a documentary. I’m not trying to make an exhaustive documentary on every oil country in the world. I’m trying to have these images stand in for a larger kind of thing going on up there. That makes it not journalistic or documentary, but more of an artist trying to bring home a bunch of ideas into existence through the use of photography.
I disagree with him about his work not being documentary. His photographs may not be documentary in the strict sense of the word, but in my mind they certainly have a documentary element that is partly what gives them their impact.
Then he ended with a few words on emissions reduction and sustainability:
It can only happen with government intervention. I think that through smart policies and through incentivization it can be done without destroying what we built. You still have to be hopeful though. It’s just a question of whether we get there fast enough; things are moving much quicker than expected in terms of climate change.
I’m an advocate for sustainability, because otherwise it’s a pretty cynical view of the world — it’s just, “I want to take care of myself” and “I don’t give a shit about the next generation.” It’s not very nice, especially if you have kids yourself.
We hear this over and over, don’t we? Funny how having kids makes you actually care about the future.
Speaking of which, apparently he is now tackling the subject of water and, to my chagrin, has finished shooting California. I am interested in water in California too – talk about intimidating. But the more I think about this, the more I believe that the more people working on an issue, the better. Practically speaking, it’s not great for the market value of your work, but I think if you care about the issue, more exposure means more public awareness (given that publications don’t tire of it) and that is the whole point. Even if your photos are seen by a very small group of people, I still think it’s significant and worthwhile, a good step forward. The burden, as ever, is on you (me!) to create something stand-out. Good lord, I’m no Burtynsky, but what can I do except try to feel out my corner of the world in my own way. The least I can do is try!
One Comment
amazing shots! i like em all, especially the two on top! exelent work.
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