FunctionalAmbivalent

Big Pictures

Chris Jordan is an artist who works on a massive scale, using thousands or hundreds of thousands or even millions of everyday objects to make vivid the abstraction that is American consumption. It's some of the most powerful art I've seen in years.

As an American consumer myself, I am in no position to finger wag; but I do know that when we reflect on a difficult question in the absence of an answer, our attention can turn inward, and in that space may exist the possibility of some evolution of thought or action. So my hope is that these photographs can serve as portals to a kind of cultural self-inquiry. It may not be the most comfortable terrain, but I have heard it said that in risking self-awareness, at least we know that we are awake.

He uses Barbie Dolls to make a point about breast augmentation, neatly folded uniforms to make vivid statistics about prison populations. The image above of the famous opening of the U.S. Constitution is constructed entirely of 83,000 photographs of prisoners in American custody at Abu Ghraib. That's the number of people rounded up and held by the United States, without trial, in the War on Terrorism.

As inventive and amazing as Jordan's technique may be, it is the sheer scale of his work that causes one to stop and think. We throw big numbers around without having any real idea what they represent; Jordan represents them, turning them into beauty constructed largely of our waste.

Absolutely stunning.

Pictures at an Exhibition

Artist Spencer Tunick, who poses large numbers of people naked in public places, is planning to install more than 2,000 naked people in a Vienna soccer stadium on May 11. Exhibitionists volunteers are being given free train fare to the venue by Austria's national railway.

Previous Tunick installations have been held in Switzerland, Mexico City, Iceland, Venezuela, The Netherlands, New York, Miami and lots of others. He has frequent legal troubles, mostly in the United States.

Every Picture Tells a Story. Today's Episode: In the Company Cafeteria

"Hey, look guys, I got this new digital camera!"
"Cooollll...."
"Yeah, and cuz it's digital, it doesn't cost me anything to take pictures so I just point and shoot, like this!"
"Awesome! Let's see!"
"It's just the tops of people's heads, but you get the idea."
"Yeah."
"So I got a plan."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Whaddaya say we go over and sit with Courtney and Angela. Then, while you're talking with them about SarbOx compliance or something I'll put the camera down under the table..."
"Courtney's wearing the green miniskirt."
"I know! So I put the camera down under the table and..."
"AWESOME!!!"
"Yeah. And she'll never catch on."

From here.

Want Art

The pitch goes like this:

Everybody wants something. and we're no exception. But as a twenty-something couple living in New York City, we need a little extra help getting what we want. Which is why we're putting our wants up for sale with these paintings.

The deal is, the unnamed 20-something couple paints a harmless, pop-art painting of what they want -- buffalo wings, an iPhone, a check for a million dollars -- and then they sell it for whatever that particular item costs.

It's an interesting commentary on the intersection of art an commerce. Is a painting of the same scale and ambition worth more because of the desire it represents? If it sells, is a high resale price justified because of what it initially cost? Is the art the painting, or is it the commentary?

And what if I want one of the paintings? Do I paint a painting of the painting and sell that for what the painting costs? And how do I depict shipping charges?