On the second floor of the prestigious Saatchi Gallery in West London, small circular splotches of ruby, slate and marigold fill a large framed print hanging on the wall.
Passersby from a photography group remark that it looks like the work of 19th-century Austrian painter Gustav Klimt. But it’s not a Klimt. In fact, it’s not even a painting.
It’s an aerial photograph of salt ponds in Senegal, captured in 2019 by Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky. Digging shallow ponds allows workers to harvest the salt, which from Burtynsky’s vantage point made the Earth’s surface look like a porous, multi-coloured sponge.
The Saatchi is currently devoting two floors to an
