Running on Nothing

On the fourth of February, 2009, I learned many new facts about the world. I found out how many U.S. citizens were incarcerated in 2005, I saw that 38,000 shipping containers are sent through U.S. ports every twelve hours, and I discovered exactly why Chris Jordan’s “Running the Numbers” exhibit left my artistic cravings so unsatisfied.

Jordan’s pieces fall into three categories. “Skull with Cigarette, 2008,” depicts the upper portion of a skeleton smoking a lit cigarette; the picture is composed of 200,000 miniscule cigarette packs of varying shades. In this category, a lot of small items make up a larger picture. In “Prison Uniforms, 2007,” 2.3 million folded uniforms are stacked one on top of the other. All the uniforms are almost exactly the same, and when viewed from afar, the work looks like just six brown panels of wood. This category contains works in which a lot of small items are put together without forming a larger picture. The third category, works which include no statistics, contains only the two portraits of loading docks included at the front of the exhibit.

The pieces Jordan selected to include in this exhibit are just inconsistent enough to seem unplanned. He made a larger visual representation with the cigarette packs, as he did with the Denali Denial stickers (2006) and the Ben Franklin one-hundred dollar bills (2007), but he did not create a larger image with the prison uniforms or the shipping containers (2007). There does not seem to be a noticeable difference in message between these works—each category contains statistics regarding consumerism, with no distinct variation between groups. Yet, some form a larger picture and others do not; this suggests inconsistency on the artist’s behalf.

The works in the third category, portraits not composed of smaller images, seemed almost thrown in the exhibit on a whim—they fit into the consumerism theme, but stylistically they do not jive. All in all, the exhibit does not seem particularly well-planned. Jordan gives the impression of simply finding a statistic and making a picture to go with it. This detracts from the artistic quality of the work by making it seem altogether too crafted; rather than creating an artwork for the sake of creating an artwork, Jordan is mass-producing portrayals of American consumerism with only sporadic artistic inspiration, in much the same irrelevant and wasteful way which he attempts to criticize.

Though Jordan’s artwork is very creative, imaginative, and original, I find it less than up to par artistically speaking. He took the idea of turning dull statistics into interesting art and ran with it, with generally pleasing results. However, without the adjacent plaque listing off a shocking fact about jet trails or plastic cups, the picture itself is often less-than-engaging. If Jordan presented “Shipping Containers, 2007,” without the statistic to guide the viewer, it would just be a lot of small, colorful squares. As mentioned above, “Prison Uniforms, 2007,” looks more like six panels of wood than a representation of incarceration. Without the surprising statistic and its inherent message of consumerism, some of the pieces themselves aren’t all that fantastic.

“Running the Numbers” is a fascinating and visually appealing exhibit, but the art aspect really only kicks in when one views the pieces at a conceptual level (i.e. applying the statistic to the picture) than at a visual level (seeing a piece of art without an explanatory statistic). This hints at less-than-consistent artistry on Jordan’s part, and while it makes for an interesting and thought-provoking exhibit, his works are a little too contrived for my tastes.

If I were a crayon, I'd be dark green.

Disclaimer: I've heard from all over the place that Kant is a very difficult philosopher to understand. Therefore, not being a student of philosophy myself, my best shot will probably completely miss his point. Hey, it's all good.

On page 104, Kant makes the argument that although "pleasant" must be followed by "to me," the word "beautiful" does not need such a qualification. I'm not sure if I agree with that--for this to be true, then people have to make a distinction between those two words. I would be just as likely to say that I consider dark green to be a beautiful color as I am to say that dark green is pleasant, and in neither case do I mean that everyone else must think dark green is the best color ever.

So Kant's statement that judging objects according to concepts loses all representation of beauty is an iffy one, in my opinion. I think what Kant is saying is something like an opposition to Plato. Instead of every physical manifestation being removed from the original and imperfect, and works of art being removed over again, Kant might be saying that judging a physical object on the basis of some concept of what it should be defeats the purpose of beauty altogether. This is interesting when taken in the context of how Kant defines "beautiful;" universal appreciation loses representation, but personal appreciation does not? Interesting.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Has anyone ever read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? Man, that book is intense. When the author isn't rambling for three pages about all the teeny tiny parts that make up a motorcycle, he's spending three more pages talking about really heavy, complicated philosophies while ignoring his son Chris. It's a long, often boring book, and I wouldn't recommend it unless you are really extremely interested in both philosophy and motorcycles.

However, there are some really fascinating points that the author makes in the novel. The one I want to talk about relates to Hume quite nicely.

(Here come spoilers, watch out.)

The big premise of the novel is this concept of Quality. Quality is the binding force between subjectivity and objectivity--it transcends those two dimensions. Basically, Qualtiy with a capital Q is the inherent quality with a lower case q which every object has. It precedes subjectivity and objectivity--it is just there. Quality is where objectivity and subjectivity originate. (Pretty heavy, huh?) It's hard to summarize without sounding ridiculous--the book itself is actually really detailed and convincing in this whole argument of Quality. I hope that explanation made some kind of sense.

Hume describes early in his essay that one philosophy of taste considers sentiment and judgement to be two separate and irreconcilable factors. Every sentiment is correct--and any judgement of the value of sentiments is inherently flawed. This is really similar to what a lot of people, including myself, think about art theory--it's too subjective. Hume's entire paper just made me think of this notion of Quality. Subjectivity is a tricky business, because you can't have subjectivity without having objectivity also. It's like the dichotomy between good and evil--you have to have a comparison for the two ideas to be valid. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Quality was the underlying factor upon which the entire universe is founded. Quality is taste. Art may depend on people's tastes and it may be subjective, but in order for this to be true there has to be such a thing as "taste"--and that is what Quality is. If any given thing did not have its own quality, how could anyone ever judge it at all?