ART WITH A PURPOSE: STATISTICS GIVEN LIFE

Along the lines of endorsing Irving Norman's social surrealism and the antics of the Living Theatre, I give you the following: more art-as-action, art as agent of social change and consciousness. I may not agree fully with the message--I wish the artist would have added in "tax dollars wasted by bureaucrats" and "corpses piled up by state-sponsored wars"--but oh well, I guess I will have to do that myself.

Running the Numbers An American Self-Portrait This new series looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 426,000 cell phones retired every day. This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. My only caveat about this series is that the prints must be seen in person to be experienced the way they are intended. As with any large artwork, their scale carries a vital part of their substance which is lost in these little web images. Hopefully the JPEGs displayed here might be enough to arouse your curiosity to attend an exhibition, or to arrange one if you are in a position to do so. The series is a work in progress, and new images will be posted as they are completed, so please stay tuned. ~chris jordan, Seattle, 2007 This series will be exhibited at the Von Lintel Gallery in New York from June 14th to the end of July. Opening reception on June 14th. More info at www.vonlintel.com.

Building Blocks, 2007 16 feet tall x 32 feet wide in eighteen square panels, each sized 62x62". Depicts nine million wooden ABC blocks, equal to the number of American children with no health insurance coverage in 2007. With figures drawn for scale reference: Partial zoom: Zoomed closer: Detail at actual size: Toothpicks, 2007 60x99" Depicts 8 million toothpicks, equal to the number of trees harvested in the US every month to make the paper for mail order catalogs. Plastic Bottles, 2007 60x120" Depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes. Partial zoom: Detail at actual size: Cigarettes, 2007 60x82" Depicts 65,000 cigarettes, equal to the number of American teenagers under age eighteen who become addicted to cigarettes every month. Partial zoom: Detail at actual size: Jet Trails, 2007 60x96" Depicts 11,000 jet trails, equal to the number of commercial flights in the US every eight hours. Partial zoom: Detail at actual size: Cell Phones, 2007 60x100" Depicts 426,000 cell phones, equal to the number of cell phones retired in the US every day. Partial zoom: Detail at actual size: Pain Killers, 2007 60x80" Depicts 213,000 Vicodin pills, equal to the number of emergency room visits yearly in the US related to misuse or abuse of prescription pain killers. Partial zoom: Detail at actual size: Handguns, 2007 60x92" Depicts 29,569 handguns, equal to the number of gun-related deaths in the US in 2004. Partial zoom: Detail at actual size: Paper Bags, 2007 60x80" Depicts 1.14 million brown paper supermarket bags, the number used in the US every hour. Partial zoom: Detail at actual size: Plastic Bags, 2007 60x72" Depicts 60,000 plastic bags, the number used in the US every five seconds. Partial zoom: Detail at actual size: Denali Denial, 2006 60x75" Depicts 24,000 logos from the GMC Yukon Denali, equal to six weeks of sales of that model SUV in 2004. Detail at actual size (this is the far left corner of the lake): Prison Uniforms, 2007 10x23 feet in six vertical panels Depicts 2.3 million folded prison uniforms, equal to the number of Americans incarcerated in 2005. Partial zoom: Detail at actual size: Installed at the Von Lintel Gallery, NY, June 2007 Cans Seurat, 2007 60x92" Depicts 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every thirty seconds. Partial zoom: Detail at actual size: Office Paper, 2007 60x87" Depicts 30,000 reams of office paper, or 15 million sheets, equal to the amount of office paper used in the US every five minutes. Detail at actual size: Valve Caps, 2006 10x25 feet in five vertical panels Depicts 3.6 million tire valve caps, one for each new SUV sold in the US in 2004. Partial zoom: Detail at actual size: Ben Franklin, 2007 8.5 feet wide by 10.5 feet tall in three horizontal panels Depicts 125,000 one-hundred dollar bills ($12.5 million), the amount our government spends every hour on the war in Iraq. Partial zoom: Detail at actual size: Shipping Containers, 2007 60x100" Depicts 75,000 shipping containers, the number of containers processed through American ports every day. Detail at actual size: