© Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Weinstein Hammons Gallery, Minneapolis / Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto
- Rock of Ages #7, Active Granite Section, Wells-Lamson Quarry, Barre, Vermont
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As North America’s largest manufacturer of granite headstones and memorials, Rock of Ages Corporation operates more than ten active quarries and five manufacturing facilities in Vermont and Quebec. Edward Burtynsky sought out these quarries in the 1990s in an attempt to better understand and visualize the landscapes from which the raw materials required for human construction and development were extracted. Making photographs that fully depict the scale of the industrial mining operations, Burtynsky’s pictures give the impression of tiny toy figures placed atop massive toy blocks.
ProvenanceThe artist, Toronto; purchased by MFAH, 1992.
Exhibition History"Manufactured Landscapes: The Photographs of Edward Burtynsky," Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa, January 24–April 20, 2003; Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, October 7, 2004–January 9, 2005; Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, March 20–May 11, 2005; Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for the Visual Arts at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, June 29–September 18, 2005; Brooklyn Museum, September 23–December 11, 2005.
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