Forgotten Planes

This body of photographs, commissioned by Tim Leach, is best described like this: "Tim asked if subject matter was important to me. I said, 'No, only what I evoke from that subject matter is important to me.' He said, 'Can you evoke something from my company's oil fields and facilities in Southeastern New Mexico?' I said, 'Yes, I can find what I strive for in most anything.' And so began 'Forgotten Planes', a manifestation of my belief that form is transcendent and that the ability of the camera to record reality is the least of it's possibilities."

James Housefield, Professor in History of Art & Design at the University of California, Davis, wrote this in my book Forgotten Planes:

"Burton Pritzker's imagery communicates a philosophy in which "everything is also something else." This philosophical stand helps to make sense of an apparent paradox arising from his work. Although human figures are not a part of Forgotten Planes, his art is imbued with humanist motivations. Ultimately, Pritzker seeks to address the human condition, for his compositions reveal the invisible humanity within them. He arranges forms that he finds in the world around him so that they communicate something more than the sum of their parts. In these acts of composition, the stuff of our material world presents itself as the shadows of something else. Through images that appear to be the manifestations of memory or of imagination, Pritzker guides viewers on a philosophical road trip."

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