Paul Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles

138 North La Brea Avenue
90036 Los Angeles

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paulkopeikingallery.com pkgallery@earthlink.net

artist / participant

Chris Jordan 

press release

The Paul Kopeikin Gallery is proud to present Running the Numbers: An American Self Portrait, the most recent series by Chris Jordan. This is Jordan’s third exhibition at the Gallery. This exhibition opens Saturday, September 8 and runs through October 20, 2007. A reception with the artist will take place on Saturday, September 8, 2007 from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. The reception is free and open to the public. The gallery is located at 6150 Wilshire Boulevard, just west of Fairfax. For information call (323) 937-0765 or visit our website at paulkopeikingallery.com

“Chris is the Michael Moore of Photography” - Paul Kopeikin

Chris Jordan again examines a disturbing aspect of contemporary American culture, this time through the austerity of statistics. The series evaluates the enormity of personal and national consumption with a familiar approach in line with Jordan’s progressive spirit and previous work. What’s different in this series, other than the imagery itself, is their scale, which in this case is a vital part of their substance.

“These images are portals of cultural self-inquiry” – Chris Jordan

The photographs hold the viewer with the recognition and implication of each staggering statistic. Each image portrays a specific quantity of a commonly consumed or used item in the United States: Fifteen million sheets of office paper equaling five minutes of paper use; 106,000 aluminum cans representing thirty seconds of can consumption.

Images representing these quantities have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 426,000 cell phones retired every day.

This project visually examines these vast and bizarre Societal measures in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs.

Chris Jordan
Running the Numbers: An American Self Portrait