SOCAR Oil Fields #6, Baku, Azerbaijan, 2006. © Edward Burtynsky/Courtesy of Hasted Hunt Kraeutler, New York/Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto

Edward Burtynsky: Oil consists of a series of large format color images made over the last 12 years. Burtynsky’s obsession with oil began in 1997, when he identified oil as a key building block of the last century—politically, economically and socially—on a global scale. He has tracked this controversial, valuable and increasingly scarce resource from extraction to production to consumption. The far reaching scope of the project has taken him from oil fields to expressways, from Western Canada to Los Angeles to the Middle East. The exhibit runs contemporaneously at three venues, Edward Burtynsky: Oil is on view until November 28th at Hasted Hunt Kraeutler, New York; until October 31 at Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto; and until December 13 at The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Burtynsky also recently published this work in a new book, OIL, from Steidl.

SOCAR Oil Fields #3, Baku, Azerbaijan 2006. © Edward Burtynsky/Courtesy of Hasted Hunt Kraeutler, New York/Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto

SOCAR Oil Fields #1a & #1b, Baku, Azerbaijan 2006. © Edward Burtynsky/Courtesy of Hasted Hunt Kraeutler, New York/Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto

Oil Refineries #23, Oakville, Ontario 1999. © Edward Burtynsky/Courtesy of Hasted Hunt Kraeutler, New York/Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto

Silver Lake Operations #12, Lake Lefroy, Western Australia, 2007. © Edward Burtynsky/Courtesy of Hasted Hunt Kraeutler, New York/Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto

Silver Lake Operations #1, Lake Lefroy, Western Australia, 2007. © Edward Burtynsky/Courtesy of Hasted Hunt Kraeutler, New York/Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto

VW Lot #2a & #2b, Shanghai, China, 2005. © Edward Burtynsky/Courtesy of Hasted Hunt Kraeutler, New York/Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto

Oil Fields #13, Taft, California, USA 2002. © Edward Burtynsky/Courtesy of Hasted Hunt Kraeutler, New York/Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto