Kaid Benfield's Blog
Chris Jordan’s art: crushed cars, 1.14 million supermarket bags, and more
April 29, 2008
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Curbing Pollution , Living Sustainably
Chris Jordan thinks big, and he wants us to think big, too. He makes large-scale fine art photographs of American mass consumption, the losses from Hurricane Katrina, and more. Have you ever wondered what the number of plastic drink bottles used by Americans every five minutes (two million) look like, all piled together? Or the number of cell phones retired in the US every day (426,000), in a heap? Or the number of brown paper supermarket bags used every hour, stacked together?
In some ways, the art is mesmerizing, and it is rendered not entirely without a sense of humor, although the messages are serious ones. Few words are needed. Barbie dolls, aluminum cans, children’s blocks, even handguns, and more. His art has been widely exhibited in museums and galleries in the US and Europe, and you can see images of it here.
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- Kaid Benfield
- Director, Smart Growth Program
- Washington, DC
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Comments
Andrew Toth — May 7 2008 04:21 PM
Overall I think the work is interesting however i want to know the statistics he is not telling us, for example there were approximately 30,000 firearms related deaths in 2004 according to his handgun piece. However he does not tell you that every year between 1.5 and 3 MILLION Americans use firearms in lawful defense.(usually without killing anybody) I wonder what other pieces don't tell the full truth about our society. thanks for your time.
Andrew Toth