Edward Burtynsky

Courtesy of the artist and Bryce Wolkowitz

Edward Burtynsky explores our collective human impact on the environment through his sweeping photographs of the “residual landscape” created from mine tailings, railcuts, quarries, recycling yards, refineries, and freeways. In the present work, Burtynsky captures Robert Smithson’s monumental earthwork, Spiral Jetty (1970), evidence of the artist’s fascination with entropy and the transformation of our environment over time. For its construction at the mouth of a terminal basin on the northeastern shore of Great Salt Lake, Smithson used over 6,000 tons of black basalt rocks and earth to compose a 1,500-feet-long coil that winds from the shoreline into the water.

The Consignor is donating 100% of the hammer price from the sale of this and other designated artworks, to be sold during Sotheby’s Contemporary Discoveries online sale held from September 23 – October 3, 2022, to Instituto Terra, a not-for-profit Brazilian organization devoted to conservation and reforestation. In addition, in relation to these designated artworks, Sotheby’s will donate 100% of its Overhead Premium to Instituto Terra and its Buyers Premium, after deducting expenses. No portion of the purchase price is tax-deductible. For more information about Instituto Terra, visit www.institutoterra.org.