Edward Burtynsky: Water
October 5, 2013 – January 19, 2014
NOMA –> CAC presents Edward Burtynsky: Water, the world premiere of the latest body of work by internationally renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky. The exhibition includes over 50 large-scale color photographs that form a global portrait of humanity’s relationship to water. Burtynsky’s images address several facets of the world’s vital resource, exploring the source, collection, control, displacement, and depletion of water. The exhibition will be on display in the second floor Lupin Foundation Gallery of the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC).
Edward Burtynsky (born 1955, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada) has long been recognized for his ability to combine vast and serious subject matter with a rigorous, formal approach to picture making. The results are images that are part abstraction, part architecture, and part raw data. In producing Water, Burtynsky has worked across the globe—from the Gulf of Mexico to the shores of the Ganges—weaving together an ambitious representation of water’s increasingly fragmented lifecycle. While the story of water is certainly an ecological one, Burtynsky is more interested in presenting the facts on the ground than in declaring society’s motives good or bad. In focusing on all the facets of people’s relationship with water, including ritual and leisure, Burtynsky offers evidence without an argument.
Organized by Russell Lord, NOMA’s Curator of Photography, the exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by Steidl, featuring over 100 color plates from Burtynsky’s water series.
About NOMA –> CAC
NOMA –> CAC is an ongoing exhibition and programming partnership between two of the most significant cultural institutions of New Orleans: the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Contemporary Arts Center. Edward Burtynsky: Water is the second initiative of this unique collaboration, which will draw on the strengths of both institutions to provide thought-provoking exhibitions and programming for a cross section of the community.
