NEW YORK, NY.- Two exhibitions of work by renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky are on view from November 3 – December 23, 2016, at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery and from November 4 – December 31, 2016, at Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York. Burtynsky, whose incisive work explores the dilemmas at the heart of our globalized world, is known for portraying the visible outcomes of humankind’s impact on the environment. The exhibitions coincide with the publication of two new books: Salt Pans (Steidl, September 2016) and Edward Burtynsky: Essential Elements (Thames & Hudson, November 2016).

New large-scale photographs from Burtynsky’s 2016 Salt Pans series are being shown at Howard Greenberg Gallery. The work was made in India at a barren, salt-producing area in Gujarat, where thousands of families toil in the hot, flat, dry wasteland with little access to fresh water, schools, or medical help. Spread over nearly 2,000 square miles, the area is also known as “Survey Number Zero,” because no land survey has been conducted there since the end of the British rule in India in 1947. From his unique vantage point above this harsh place, Burtynsky captured the shapes, patterns, and colors of the land and the shallow artificial ponds from which salt has been harvested for many centuries.

Work from Essential Elements is being shown at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery providing an overview of Burtynsky’s work across four decades, including both iconic and previously unpublished images from his series including Quarries; Oil; and Water all of which have resulted in exhibitions and two feature-length documentaries entitled Manufactured Landscapes, 2006 and Watermark, 2013. Additional work from Essential Elements is on view at HGGII (adjacent to Howard Greenberg’s main gallery).

Books
Edward Burtynsky: Essential Elements (Thames & Hudson, November, 2016), edited and curated by William A. Ewing with an essay by Joshua Schuster, is an overview of Burtynsky’s work since the 1970s, including 140 photographs, dozens never before published. The book provides a sense of both his visual language and his exploration of environment issues around the word.

Salt Pans (Steidl, September, 2016) features 31 images from Burtynsky’s newest series photographed in India at a barren salt-bearing area located in the state of Gujarat.

Edward Burtynsky’s photographs are in the collections of over 50 museums worldwide, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; New York; Tate, London; Reina Sophia Museum, Madrid; and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. He is the subject of Jennifer Baichwal’s acclaimed 2006 documentary film Manufactured Landscapes, which won numerous awards and was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007. Burtynsky received the inaugural TED Prize in 2005. He was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2006, and has received many other awards. He holds six honorary doctorate degrees, including two he received this spring. Born in Ontario in 1955, Burtynsky lives and works in Toronto.