Chris Jordan certainly achieved his desired "shock" effect through his exhibition "Running the Numbers." His art enlivens these staggering statistics in a way that numbers cannot. The large prints speak to the importance of these statistics and convey them in a new way, leaving audiences wondering how it is that Americans waste and want so much.
I first walked into the exhibition not having read any introduction to it. The photograph that caught my eye immediately was on the opposite wall from where I entered and was of what I thought was a beautiful landscape of a field and clouds. As I approached it, I saw that the scene couldn't have been of a field and upon reading the description found that it was entitled "Toothpicks." Taken in 2008, this photograph depicted one hundred million toothpicks, representing the number of trees cut in the US yearly to make the paper that ends up as junk mail. Definitely an interesting first impression.
Among others that were more aesthetically pleasing were "Oil Barrels," a photograph depicting 28,000 42-gallon barrels of oil, the amount of oil consumed in the U.S. every two minutes, and "Barbie Dolls," depicting 32,000 barbies in a pattern, the number of monthly elective breast augmentation surgeries in the U.S. in 2006. Most of Jordan's images don't speak for themselves. For the full effect, his description beside the image is necessary to fill in the viewer on exactly what these numbers mean.
The overall sense I got from this exhibition was cold and shallow. Jordan has brought these statistics to life, but it's a still, hard life, devoid of emotion, mechanical. I would not bid for one of these images. They certainly get his point across of the enormity of our national indulgence, but it's sickening and one is left feeling a bit hopeless about the situation. The numbers still don't make sense, and I don't feel a new found inspiration to reduce/reuse/recycle, but rather find myself asking, What's one more bottle? One more light bulb left on?
No comments:
Post a Comment