Robert Burley: The Disappearance of Darkness

RYERSON IMAGE CENTRE TORONTO JANUARY 22--APRIL 13, 2014 Robert Burley's exhibition The Disappearance of Darkness is an exquisite photographic confirmation of a dying technology. The series of work considers analog photography and the massive architecture that housed its production as coming to a close. And, with it, we say goodbye to an archetype of the industrial age. Shot on large-format 4 x 5 film and digitally printed, Burley's photographs are superb. Frayed carpets, abandoned cardigans of workers, and empty workspaces appear so close that one can imagine unraveling the carpet seam or slipping on the dingy sweater. The artist has an uncanny knack for making abject industrial spaces all too human. There is warmth that teeters on sympathy in these images. Burley not only records the disappearance of analog photography, but also chronicles his own relationship to the technology, creating a visceral and sensory experience. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Burley travelled across Canada, the United States, and Europe, detailing the now empty spaces of analog photography's heyday. He takes on the challenge of documenting the empty halls of manufacturing facilities and offices, processing darkrooms and labs, and the end of monolithic factories dedicated to analog photography. Chalon-sur-Saone in France, known as the birthplace of photography in 1827, is where the Kodak-Pathe Plant operated for three-quarters of a century. Burley records the implosion with a mixture of distant observer and sensitive audience member. His images show various stages of demolition that capture the barren wasteland of industrialism and the grieving employees watching the flattening of their livelihood. His approach to this tension is repeatedly expressed in his pictures, showing great compassion for Kodak's lifetime employees while maintaining the keen eye of a documentary photographer. Implosions of Building 65 and 69, Kodak Park, Rochester, New York [2], shot in 2007, is a dusty, clouded image. Observers, passersby, and news reporters hang their heads to avoid inhalation. This image, without the context of title, could be misinterpreted as a site of war or terrorist attack. Its muddy dust fills the photograph with a sense of violence. Kodak's birthplace is transformed by Burley from the clean perimeters of Kodak Park into a spectacle of finality. Similarly pictured as either hollowed out and vacant or demolished spaces are Agfa Gevaert, established in Belgium in 1867; Ilford, located outside Manchester since 1879; Polaroid's factory in Massachusetts; Dwayne's photo lab in Kansas, the last lab to process Kodachrome; and Kodak Canada, situated at the end of Photography Drive in Toronto. …

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