SOCAR Oil Fields #3, Baku, Azerbaijan, 2006

Oil and gas represent from 40 to 50 per cent of Azerbaijan’s gross domestic product, but 90 per cent of its exports.2 The State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) plays a central role in the exploitation. Azerbaijan’s national economy relies overwhelmingly on this non-renewable resource for its sovereign wealth and its population’s standard of living. Baku has grown substantially since the turn of the century as the capital of a country that provides an alternative to Russian energy. This makes it particularly attractive to European markets wary of funding their chronically belligerent oil-rich neighbour to the east.

Seen in isolation, SOCAR Oil Fields #3 reads as a stark formal exercise, but this broader economic and geopolitical context is crucial to understanding the work as a synechdoche for systemic dependence on a non-renewable resource. Burtynsky has invested the picture with an ironic lyricism through a judicious concentration on the dynamic symmetry of its geometry. The high contrast between the black structures outlined against a white sky—mirrored in a broad still pool of oil that fills the foreground—make this picture a particularly austere example of his signature aesthetic ambivalence. The sterile dirt that serves as a horizon in this monochromatic panorama emphasizes the dystopian reading without compromising its compositional elegance.