By: DeWitt Cheng

DeWitt Cheng — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 03:52:44 +0000

I’m an enthusiastic admirer of Burtynsky’s work notwithstanding (and probably due to) its unearthly beauty and monumental scale. I understand the ethical qualms around exploiting ecological disaster and estheticizing human misery; certainly anyone who has looked at war photography begins to wonder, as Susan Sontag did so pointedly, about consuming death porn behind a hypocritical mask of humanity. Do we become ipso facto voyeurs if we observe horrors from a safe distance? I think it depends of the artist and the viewer. Should Picasso have gone to Africa in his declining years to repay his cubist debt, as John Berger advised, instead of making those embarrassing cartoons about senile impotence? Are the photomontages of John Heartfield too overtly political? (That’s the esthete’s objection to engaged art.) Are Salgado’s figures too dignified and even sentimental for contemporary taste? I believe the issues of global warming are served by Burtynsky’s work in the long term, and that hortatory placards for raising our consciousnesses have their place, too.

By: margaret evangeline

margaret evangeline — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 19:57:58 +0000

I read this with admiration. For an artist, it’s hard to trump the aesthetic allure of a fine photograph, especially ones that call to mind the “dust bowl” photographs. But Linquist is so right to feel the disconnect between the sensibility and the “ethical gravity”, to want something deeper than the sensuality of the well made photo in this case. It is a document after all, yet, isn’t the rawness of this subject matter the point? Very thoughtful review.

Comments on: Clicking while the Gulf Burns: Edward Burtynsky’s photography

By: DeWitt Cheng

By: margaret evangeline