William Kherbek reports on the much anticipated re-opening of The Photographers’ Gallery and their current body of work, by Edward Burtynsky
The Photographers’ Gallery has reopened at last. Much anticipation and trepidation has accompanied the renovation of the gallery’s space in Soho. The gallery has moved several times since its first incarnation in Great Newport Street – some addresses have been more successful than others.There was approachability and a grittiness that suited the gallery’s aesthetic
when it was based off Leicester Square,but its previous life in the present space was less felicitous. The update of the space, however, appears to have finally created a location that suits both the ambition and the aesthetic of the gallery. The current show of a body of work concerning the extraction, transportation, and use of oil by the Canadian photographer
Edward Burtynsky – appropriately, if unimaginatively, titled Oil — demonstrates that the new space comfortably accommodates works of an epic scale and with epic intentions.Perhaps only Exxon Mobil and the architects of the Project for a New American Century have spent as much time thinking about oil over the course of the last decade as Burtynsky.
“It’s incongruous, slightly constructivist in terms of composition, and just enough off-centre to avoid the kind of symmetry and beauty Burtynsky finds in almost every other image”
The photographer traces his interest-come-obsession with petroleum to a moment in 1997 when, as he writes, “it occurred to me that the vast, human-altered landscapes that I pursued and photographed for over twenty years were only made possible by the discovery of oil”. In the images there are plenty of refineries and oil fields,spaghetti piping and sludge pits,and lots of tankers and fires;in other words the drama
and social realism that you might expect from the images in National Geographic magazine. Is that a problem? Well, it depends on what you’re looking for in the works. If you’re coming to the show looking for challenging new perspectives on image composition, intellectually daring new approaches to the subject matter and materials of photography, this probably isn’t the show for you.
Only one image genuinely seemed to transcend a kind of bland, documentary quality – an image of a sleek, silver pipeline jutting through a section of Canadian forest. It’s incongruous, slightly constructivist in terms of composition, and just enough off-centre to avoid the kind of symmetry and beauty Burtynsky finds in almost every other image.
“Ambivalence may be the calling card of modernity, but that doesn’t feel like enough in a show this ambitious”
This is not to say the works aren’t visually stunning. The exhausted landscapes and pools of run-off in Azerbaijan and Canada have a malignant beauty that reflects the relationship of human beings to oil with all its Faustian promise. But the works are so studiously composed and neutral they somehow end up telling you less about our problem with petroleum than they promise.
You get the sense that the images are the photographic equivalent of Rorschach blots, an environmentalist will see destruction, oil enthusiasts will see progress in action, and aesthetes will see beauty. Ambivalence may be the calling card of modernity, but that doesn’t feel like enough in a show this ambitious.Even the locations where Burtynsky sets up his
camera,most notably Azerbaijan – home of the brutal Aliyev dictatorship and its archipelago of prison-dungeons – cry out for deeper engagement than aestheticised photojournalism. The works engage the eye, but don’t really seem to burrow deeper under the skin, let alone settle in the brain.
Burtynsky: Oil is at the Photographer’s Gallery from May 19th to July 1st
