AMAM Exhibits Photographs By Chris Jordan ~ Running the Numbers
Oberlin, OH – The Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College presents Running the Numbers: Photographs by Chris Jordan. The exhibit will be on view in the museum’s Ellen Johnson Gallery through June 8, 2008. Chris Jordan’s photos investigate contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. The themes of environmental stewardship, mass consumption, waste, public health and social justice are explored through Jordan’s haunting, large-scale images.
The works confront viewer with the often overwhelming numbers that are the sum of our individual habits. Each photo in this series, subtitled “An American Self-Portrait,” depicts a specific quantity of a particular item: 15 million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 426,000 cell phones (the number retired every day); 106,000 aluminum cans (30 seconds of consumption). These vast photographs, assembled from thousands of smaller ones, cause viewers to examine their roles as members of a consumer society. One example, “Plastic Bottles,” is a 60” x 120” digital print of two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the United States every five minutes.
“Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing,” Jordan has stated. “This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society. My underlying desire is to emphasize the role of the individual in a society that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible and overwhelming.”
Chris Jordan finds inspiration for his photos from such diverse sources as Van Gogh, Georges Seurat and Ansel Adams, as well as the late 20th-century art movements of systems art, minimalism and op art.
Jordan was recently interviewed by Bill Moyers, on PBS’s “Bill Moyers Journal,” as well as by Stephen Colbert on “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central, and also appeared on the “Rachel Ray Show.”
Running the Numbers is Jordan’s first solo museum exhibition and is organized by Andria Derstine, Curator of Western Art at the AMAM.
The Allen Memorial Art Museum is open to the public. Admission is free. Hours: Tuesday through Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.; Sunday 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. The museum is closed Mondays and major holidays. Free educational or group guided tours may be arranged by calling the museum’s Education Office at (440) 775-8671. Visit : www.oberlin.edu/amam