In a recent rant taking aim at National Geographic's hypocritical expose of the Albertan oil sands devastation, the CBC's Rex Murphy claims, "Getting oil out of the ground has never been pretty." Apparently Rex has never seen the photographs of Edward Burtynsky. Unlike the competent photojournalism featured in the contested issue, Burtynsky's photos transcend mere documentary, transforming often horrifying scenes of ravaged industrial landscapes into stunning formal objects.

Homesteads No. 27, Coleman, Alberta, 1985

Part of the Exposure 2009 Calgary-Banff Photography Festival, Edward Burtynsky: The Residual Landscapes at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies features 39 works by the celebrated Canadian photographer more familiarly known as Ed. The human impact on the land in its various manifestations is Burtynsky's métier. Previously the landscapes were "manufactured," as in the award-winning documentary that follows the photographer to China, where he shoots massive factory sites and abject villages replete with e-waste. Here they are "residual," referencing both the accumulated byproduct of so much industrial undertaking around the world, as well as the collection of photographs included in the exhibition, which date back to the early 1980s and function as a visual archive for these volatile sites.

Spanning a period of more than two decades, the series of glossy large-scale prints reveals Burtynsky's experimentation over time, in both subject matter and approach. From the slice-of-life quaintness in his early shots of lonely British Columbia farmlands dissected by road and rail, to the ghastly beauty of Ontario uranium and nickel mine tailings in photos from the mid nineties, the artist adjusts his gaze from the intimate to the omniscient, capturing scenes that are more or less otherworldly. Burtynsky reaches the penultimate in post-industrial sublime with images of ship breaking in Bangladesh and Chinese stone quarries, which introduce the human presence to underscore the scale and the horror of these endeavours. In his most recent series on the Fort McMurray oil sands, he fully exploits his trademark aerial perspective to capture intersecting geometric and "organic" patterns that appear in these scenes of desolation. Contrary to Rex Murphy's statement, they are very, very pretty, albeit alarmingly so.

Uranium Tailings No. 12, Elliot Lake, Ontario, 1995

This exhibition of contemporary photography is unusual, yet highly auspicious for the Whyte Museum - Burtynsky donated 22 of the prints on exhibition to the collection. The symbolism of this gesture is immediate: to maintain a significant collection of Burtynskys in a museum that represents one of the most beautiful natural landscapes in Canada if not the world, and which is located smack dab in the middle of the protected heritage site of Banff National Park, provides a fitting context for images that warn of the immense perils of industry to vulnerable land.

But is this really what these photographs do? Burtynsky speaks of the uneasy contradiction his photographs represent between our fear of environmental ruin and the desires that lead to such atrocity. In essence, the seductive nature of the prints - many of which almost appear as abstracts and all of which can be viewed primarily for their striking compositions, rich yet nuanced colour, and meticulous technique - acts as a metaphor for the seductiveness of the modern consumer lifestyle. The gloss and glamour of the illusion too often override the irreparable consequences, and Burtynsky astutely points out that the scenes he shoots represent "places that are outside of our normal experience, yet we partake of their output on a daily basis." The landscapes refer to a dominant out of sight/out of mind mentality in capitalism that is mimicked by the sheer beauty of the photographs.

Shipbreaking No. 12, Chittagong, Bangladesh, 2000

It is my suspicion, however, that Burtynsky's role as an activist is too frequently overstated. The Whyte's programming emphasized this theme with an artist's talk and panel discussion focusing on environmentalism and the social role of artists. This angle on the work suits the museum's mandate and demographic, which is by and large more concerned with the surrounding natural scenery and threats thereto than with contemporary art discourse. Yet to equate Burtynsky's practice with an environmental goal is problematic in that it elides the reality of his enterprise. Though ostensibly the photos promote awareness of the issues at hand, they are equally open to criticism for aestheticizing environmental atrocity. Furthermore, any photographer will admit that their craft is far from ecologically sound, and Burtynsky's practice in particular is quite the undertaking. The disconnect between the ominous slickness of the prints hanging in the gallery and the reality for the workers behind the images becomes acutely unsettling in Jennifer Baichwal's documentary on the artist: the lone figure atop a crane stands in stark contrast against the thousands of Chinese labourers below. The (white, male, North American) artist-hero in this depiction harks back to a nineteenth-century bourgeois Utopianism, while the omniscient gaze of his camera evades the cultural reflexivity necessary to address such issues in this globalized age.

Alberta Oil Sands # 6, Fort McMurray, Alberta, 2007. Images copyright Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Paul Kuhn Gallery, Calgary.

At best, I think Burtynsky very smartly occupies a precarious place between artist and activist, in which his breathtakingly poignant photographs always escape preachiness, while of course remaining highly saleable. At worst, the distinction between artmaking and activism is glossed over by agents who equate Burtynsky's primary role as an artist with his works' alarming subject matter, in a McLuhanesque flip that mistakes the message for the medium.

Edward Burtynsky: The Residual Landscapes runs February 7 - April 26, 2009.