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Artist and photographer Chris Jordan examines the bad habits of human consumption with work that depicts trash in all its incarnations.
From a distance, his collections of bottle caps, bullets, or Barbie parts are pleasantly abstract, though carefully orchestrated in their large-scale, long-zoom formats. As a body of work, Jordan’s photographs and multimedia pieces — combining documentary with staged production — reveal stunning data about the accumulation of stuff, wrapping social commentary in an attractive packaging.
Check out Jordan’s gallery, watch his Stephen Colbert appearance, buy his Intolerable Beauty DVD, and snag a signed copy of his book Running the Numbers.
In this Ted Talks episode from 2008, Jordan illustrates a shocking picture of America’s relationship with garbage, including the fact that we use four-million plastic cups a day on airline flights alone.
From the series Midway: Message from the Gyre
“These photographs of albatross chicks were made on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.” Courtesy of Chris Jordan.
Running the Numbers, 2005-2009
In Running the Numbers, Jordan collects pieces of trash that signify a whole statistic. In this example, the 166,000 packing peanuts he photographed are equal to the number of overnight packages shipped by air in the US every hour. The image below shows 32,000 Barbies, equal to the number of elective breast-augmentation surgeries performed monthly in the US in 2006.
E. Pluribus Unum, 2009
This mandala depicts the names of one-million organizations around the world that are “devoted to peace, environmental stewardship, social justice, and the preservation of diverse and indigenous culture.” Jordan envisions a large-scale installation comprising 2,000 laser-etched metal tiles with a diameter between 50 and 100 feet.
Intolerable Beauty: Portraits of American Mass Consumption
“The immense scale of our consumption can appear desolate, macabre, oddly comical and ironic, and even darkly beautiful; for me its consistent feature is a staggering complexity.”
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11 Responses
Trashy art appears to be en vogue this year and I loves it. Check out Artist Adran K’s NYC/Int’l Public Art Installation: “Trash: anycoloryoulike”
video: http://www.youtube.com/user/TRASHanycoloryoulike
or
project: http://www.anycoloryoulike.biz
TRASH: anycoloryoulike is a vivid art intervention for urban beautification and environmental awareness. The project consists of select city blocks in which new artist-created biodegradable bags transform standard piles of trash into vivid sculptures of color through the participation of local business owners and residents. The project was developed by artist Adrian Kondratowicz.
Jordan’s photos are not fine art they are graphs or at best charts not even illustrations. They are simple pictures of hard number quantities, lacking what real art embodies: emotion, passion and intellectual discovery. Easily explained and easily engaged. His so called art is virtually without challenge. Perfect for popular public consumption.
I completely agree with darryl. These are conceptually narrow, one-dimensional visual aids.
Nothing wrong with defending your art world from philistine intrusion, fellas, but there’s nothing wrong with illustration either. I don’t get much emotion, passion or intellectual discovery from the Elgin Marbles either, but I do like to look at them, and the fascination with Jordan’s work is understandable.
I’d prefer these were widely seen, even as a sort of public service announcement — just as I’d love people to have a look at photographs of the kids who sew our clothes. As for garbage, half the people who live in my building can’t even be bothered to separate their trash. That’s a valid public concern, and who cares if it’s an “artistic” concern.
Well, I do think it’s “art”, even if it doesn’t really show any emotional truth or head toward any kind of gestault. Art can be bereft. Art can be clinical, emotionally retarded, bad… it can be a lot of things. Art with a capital “A” is becoming a tiresome idea. We need to get it off the pedastal for our own sanity’s sake. For me, ‘art” is whatever you can get away with. This guys doing it. So be it.
Right on Andrew. Enough art snobbery! If it makes you think outside the box, AMEN. Life is art when lived in a meaningful way. Who taught Mutt and Jeff their definitions? Sorry-Mutt and Darryl.
Sounds like art school and am sorry if I sound mean spirited. How come we live in a society of second guessing? How’s about, “I do not care for this work!”
I happen to like this work and admire the artist for his level of engagement and his execution. To me it shows a well grounded understanding of his materials. His message is spot on. It is forward thinking. Am sure it is flawed, too. But what the fuck is perfect art? Talk about unemotional!
Peace, NYSTAN
Pardon my intrusion, but I think his work is great.
I think his work opens up an very important question regarding art. It has only been for the last hundred and twenty years (since the rise of the modern world), that art had become such an elitist experience. It is not coincidental that the Art Market rose at that same time. Artists have been struggling with how to make their work socially relevant and not just a commodity used to show status. Perhaps his work does not move you with Modernist ideal of aesthetic transcendence, but he is using all the elements of visual communication to be critical of his society. His work recreates the result of our myopic vision. I use one paper cup, so what’s the problem. He is telling you to step back and look on a larger scale outside of the ME, then asking what are YOU doing. Picasso’s Guernica was a social commentary as well. It was much more expressive, while Jordan’s work is cerebral, but the ends are the same. Some are moved by expressive work; some are moved by cerebral work. The important question for me is: Is it visually effective?
Why not make some room in your head for other definitions of art. I am an artist from a rigid formalist background, and my biggest fear is that Art (High Art for the Elite, Educated, often Monied Class) will become so socially irrelevant, that we will all just be left with Ikea prints and Screen Savers.
Michael-what is your definition of “HIGH ART”?
Aren’t you contradicting yourself? You seem to enjoy the idea of social commentary as opposed to pandering to the wealthy classes/the patronage system of art, yet you bemoan the end of I suppose, based on your description of yourself, figurative or classical ‘abstract’ art.
Maybe you buy into a pretense that because one makes art, one is entitled to be supported by society. I think this way of thinking is self destructive.
Art cannot stop existing. It is inherent in man’s nature. Look at ancient cave paintings. Could anything convey this better? Sophisticated, expressive art, showing complicated technique, understanding of form etc….no-IKEA is not going to destroy art. But, what it might destroy, is the capitalist/corporate model of commercial art for the wealthy, and to that I say, BRING IT ON!
Rothko was right. Painting is dead…as a relevant tool of social change (meanwhile, I wish I could paint figuratively, but not with the pretense that I would ever make a nickel.)
food for thought, or maybe not…I agree with much of what you write.
darryl, dude–
That’s what Jordan is all about-emotion, passion, (these two sound pretty much the same) and intellectual discovery, not to mention carrying on the long time (think Caravaggio) artistic tradition of social realism/critique. Sounds like art to me.
Many artists were projecting their social commentary when they painted but it was biblical as in telling stories from the bible and commenting on what they meant at the same time. Their talents were seen for ART in both an abstract sense as well as a way to move forward a very political and social construct called the Roman Catholic church (oh, and make money).