The Nice Acceleration on the International Center of Photography

Salt River Pima and Maricopa Indian Community / Suburb, Scottsdale, Arizona, USA 2011  © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York 

By INGRID DINTER September 23, 2025

Who knew that going to hell might look so fairly … 

It was a scorching day in June, an early heatwave, I joined a bunch of AIPAD (Association of International Photography Art Dealers) VIPs for a curator walkthrough of the exhibition of latest and previous work by Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, on the International Center of Photography.  An added bonus: the artist was current. 

Until then I had only a passing familiarity with Burtynsky’s largescale shade images.  I had seen some right here and there through the years, registering the birds eye view of distant goings on,  They gave the impression to be telling me one thing, but it surely by no means fairly broke by to my consciousness.  So, I assumed, why not—a chilly museum on a scorching and muggy afternoon, a primary go to to the downtown ICP, and a curator walkthrough—what might be extra inviting …

We had been ushered into the elevator and brought upstairs the place we entered the exhibition house.  Being in a bunch of individuals one has to look previous the our bodies to get a way of what’s on the wall; likewise, to deal with the speaker and what they’re speaking about.  David Campany began us off, after which he and Edward Burtynsky traded speaking backwards and forwards for the remainder of the tour.

Edward Burtynsky at ICP, picture: Ingrid Dinter

At first look, what struck me most of all was the whole absence of feminine presence within the work.  Not simply the subject material, however the essence—a whiff, a touch, an consciousness.  As we went by the present, and likewise taking a look at early work on the subsequent flooring mezzanine, this absence didn’t change.  We had been taking a look at a person’s world, by a person’s eye.  

There are many layers of notion right here.  There is the very fact of the subject material, which frequently has to do with mining—a manly endeavor.  Burtynsky defined that in his early days he labored in mining and due to this fact was conversant in all points of it.  I realized a brand new phrase: tailings.  This is the residue leftover from mining ore.  Which in fact has to go someplace, so we see these “rivers” or “pools” the place the waste flows or is saved.  Burtynsky goes to nice lengths to get permission to {photograph} these eventualities, because the perpetrators would somewhat that they continue to be hidden.  He does us that favor, to disclose the atrocities capitalism leaves in its wake, particularly its devastating results on the environment.  

Nickel Tailings #34, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada 1996. © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York  

The first work we have a look at is a diptych of a somewhat forlorn grayish panorama with a brilliant blood pink stream winding in the direction of us.  This impact is doubled by a variation within the different panel.  The story is about mining and tailings, however the rapid visible impact is overwhelmingly aesthetic—the somewhat flat grey background in opposition to the imposing pink.  So, the confusion begins, no less than for this viewer.   

One appears to be like round, and there may be {photograph} after {photograph} of impeccable and transcendent magnificence.  It is just not instantly obvious that what we see is a straight on seize of an actual, and usually horrific, state of affairs going down in a “natural setting”.  One sees varieties and colours, compositions, abstractions that end up to not be summary in any respect.  One’s eye bounces backwards and forwards, between the fact of the recorded incontrovertible fact that we’re gazing at and the just about chic great thing about the picture.  One’s choice is to give up to the overwhelming aesthetic, the fantastic thing about the colours, varieties, and compositions, somewhat than confront and work together with the laborious and ugly information.  Yes, it’s laborious to concurrently soak up what is definitely being depicted.  Is there a message right here?

Pivot Irrigation #8, High Plains, Texas Panhandle, USA 2012. © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York 

Before we will catch our breath, we’re led into the subsequent house, with its ca. 30 foot-high ceiling, and confronted with a large {photograph} taken from on excessive wanting straight down on a view of some agricultural acreage—resembling seen from an airplane en route between the coasts.  It stands tall and vast like a mural, a large wall, some 28 x 28 toes.  One feels dwarfed standing close to it.  Then feels drawn to inspecting it up shut—no, I couldn’t see the seams.  It is in fact printed on vinyl, as with so many billboards and wall dimension museum installations.  Again, it exhibits us how man marks the setting, on this case the huge agricultural business within the mid-west.  The irrigation circles are acquainted to these of us preferring the window seats when flying coast to coast, as we gaze down on the passing panorama from our miles excessive perch.  And if we sit and ponder past what we’re taking a look at we start to consider how a lot water is getting used, and the way the aquifers are drying up, and all for what, and the way, and why. 

Despite our consideration being drawn to the atrocities aggressively being perpetrated on our shared and finite pure environment, and the degradation it incurrs, time and again we’re offered with excessive magnificence.  How is that this reconciled?  It’s complicated to me what the photographer is attempting to inform us.  

Uralkali Potash Mine #4, Berezniki, Russia 2017. © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

Another facet is simply plain images—the methods, the gear, know-how.  Things was fairly easy – a digicam, movie, and paper, and hoofing it round on foot.  And dimension too was a constraint.  Now it’s about digital printing, and the machines which produce giant scale pictures.  Even having the house to create these works is crucial.  Everything massive.  Bigger.  Biggest.  Or, how massive can we go?  Even the photographer not must be bodily current to launch the shutter —he might be miles away, directing a drone, following and composing, and selecting the decisive second on a pc display screen.  

Many of the pictures on this present are diptychs.  Is this to be able to maximize dimension?  True, some works profit from the extra panel, and in that case, why not go three, or 4, extra panels, vertically or horizontally …  Maybe that query is partially answered with the vinyl coated huge wall with the agricultural picture.  Everything appears to be rising exponentially, into infinity.  Perhaps that’s the actual momentum behind the good acceleration.

Feng Jie #3, Yangtze River, China 2002   © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York  

Looking round, time and again, I’m taken by the sheer monumental great thing about the pictures.  Then I’m stopped in my tracks by remembering that, in reality, we’re witnessing the good destruction of our pure world that our messenger, the photographer, has gone to nice lengths to level out to us.  But the impression of that degradation is dulled by all this magnificence seeming to get in the way in which.  Are we presupposed to have it each methods?  

As the walkthrough was winding down, I ventured “Who knew that going to hell could look so pretty” …  The group chuckled. WM