The work of visual artist and photographer Chris Jordan is distinguished by the ingenuity of its concept and technique, as well as by the critical quality of its content. A characteristic example may be found in Cans Seurat (2007), a work which makes reference to the classic modernist painting Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte (1884-1886) by George Seurat.
Chris Jordan reinterprets the painting through a simulation of its technical construction. The dots of colour which constitute the core of the pointillist approach, are substituted by aluminium cans. In this respect, Cans Seurat is, and simultaneously is not, Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte. The work's textuality consists of different forms of juxtaposition between a long view and a close-up, between the emblematic cultural value of the painting and the artistic insignificance of the cans which reconstruct it, as well as between the uniqueness of the former and the multiplicity of the latter. The work depicts 106.000 cans, the number used in the United States every thirty seconds. In this way, the painting is not only reconstructed, it is also redefined: the modernist tradition comes face to face with the evolution of a contemporary consumerist society.
Source: Meanderings along the narrow way
Chris Jordan's work may be seen through a postmodernist lens, particularly with regard to the dissolution of the bipolar opposition between 'high' art and the culture of everyday life (R. Boyne & A. Rattansi, eds., Postmodernism and society, Macmillan, 1990). However, the elements of simulation, and/or parody, which may be read into the work are entirely different from the cynicism usually associated with perspectives such as those of Jean Baudrillard. A key way to interpret the work of Chris Jordan is through its persistent use of statistics. The aesthetic choices guiding the visualisation of quantitative data remove their cloak of objectivity and neutrality. Chris Jordan does not recycle information: numbers are turned into images which reveal and interpret their political and cultural signification. In this way, statistics is transformed into critique.
Cans Seurat is part of the project Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait (2006-current), which is characterised by its focus on elements such as credit cards, bank notes, mobile phones, and plastic bags, as well as its visual interpretation of the statistics concerning their use. Similar subjects are evident in the subsequent project Running the Numbers II: Portraits of Global Mass Culture (2009-current), addressing the international context. References to subjects such as malnutrition and plastic waste in the oceans suggest political and environmental issues which concern us all, both individually and collectively. As Chris Jordan has argued:
I believe it is worth connecting with these issues and allowing them to matter to us personally, despite the complex mixtures of anger, fear, grief, and rage that this process can entail. Perhaps these uncomfortable feelings can become part of what connects us, serving as fuel for courageous individual and collective action as citizens of a new kind of global community. This hope continues to motivate my work.
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