Review of Chris Jordan’s Photographic and Computer Image Exhibition,Running the Numbers,Curated by Chris Bruce,Director of the Washington State University Museum of Art

Abstract

Many contemporary artists are integrating ecological themes into their work. Few, however, can rival the centrality of the ecological themes in the work of photographer and computer artist Chris Jordan. Recognizing the vast dispersion of consumption and waste practices, and their consequential invisibility, of the hundreds of millions of individuals that make up America’s consumers, Jordan uses his camera and computer to collect their consumables or detritus in one place. The result is an evocative collection of images that confronts us with our culture of consumption --and of our waste. This collection now forms a traveling exhibition curated and first shown at Washington State University and now on its way over the next two years to three other art museums (Haverford College, Austin Museum of Art and Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art) and two science centers (Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and Pacific Science Center). This review examines the artistic features of the Jordon exhibition only lightly in favor of developing the larger context of the works presented and presenting a critique of the overemphasis on the liberal ideology underlying its intended message.