Explore humanity’s complicated relationship with water through the lens of an internationally renowned photographer. The Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Va., presents Edward Burtynsky: Water. The exhibition includes more than 60 large-scale color photographs forming a global portrait of the intersection of humanity and our most precious natural resource.
Burtynsky takes full advantage of recent technological changes in photography to create massive images, several feet tall and wide. His photos engulf viewers with stunning vistas in incredible detail. These spectacular images — part photograph, part abstraction, and part anthropological treatise — transform the viewers’ experience and challenge their senses to comprehend what is shown in the frame.
Five years in the making, Water is Burtynsky’s most detailed and expansive project to date. The show includes images of the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, step-wells in India, dam construction in China, Asian aquaculture, and North American and European irrigation systems.
While the story of water is certainly an ecological one, the photographer is a documentarian, offering the evidence for viewers to decide if society’s relationship with water is good or bad. In focusing on all the facets of people’s relationship with water, including ritual and leisure uses, he offers evidence without an argument.
The exhibition will be on view at the Chrysler Museum of Art from Feb. 12 to May 15, 2016. The Chrysler Museum of Art is one of America’s most distinguished mid-sized art museums, with a nationally recognized collection of more than 30,000 objects. Plan your visit at www.chrysler.org.
