Running the Numbers Art Review

In the art exhibit, Running the Numbers, Chris Jordan explores numbers in our society that people look over every day.  They rage from numbers depicting our consumerism to numbers that explore our culture.  Each has a particular message that Johnson wants the viewer to leave with.  This is not like the contemporary art of Warhol where he claims that his art has no meaning and therefore it is up to the people to decide his meaning.  Rather, Johnson makes it more than clear when he wants a view to walk away from the situation with a greater perspective on the issue at hand.

             It appears that Johnson has become passionate about many things that he has come to realize others are not.  He feels that some issues are worth trying to change but has seen that all too many times people have quickly skimmed over the numbers when they appear in the newspaper or magazine.  He decided that it must come down to him taking action and informing the American people about these issues at hand.  He may not have been a great speaker or an incredible sculptor but he was great with the computer and camera.  It was through this medium that he created art that accompanied his passion, art that accompanied his numbers.  By Running the Numbers, he is causing millions of people to do two things that do not happen on a regular basis.  One is that people actually read and think about the numbers associated with the various issues.  Secondly, people see these numbers displayed in dramatic fashion.  It is difficult for the human mind to comprehend numbers like 2.3 million.  However, when one sees the four large prints on the wall that represent 2.3 million people incarcerated, that number becomes a little more real.  Much like it is easy to skin over the news when it is talking about chopping down trees in the rain forest.  However, when depicted by one hundred million toothpicks which account for one hundred million trees cut down to make junk mail alone, these numbers jump off of the wall.

            Two exhibits that really exemplify both Johnson’s passion and numbers that we hear everyday and yet still do nothing are Paper Bags and Skull with Cigarette.  With paper bags, art shows piles upon piles of brown paper bags.  In fact, they represent the 1.14 million brown paper supermarket bags that are used in the US every hour.  This number is astounding.  As Americans we hear everyday that we need to consume less and recycle more.  There are commercials on television that ask people to “do the right thing” and bring their own, reusable bags to carry their groceries home.  Millions of Americans don’t do this but one must wonder how many don’t care and how many are just not aware of how much we use as a country.  Johnson is trying to reach the people who are just unaware.  He hopes that he may cause at least one person to see his art and change how they bring home their groceries.  The reason that this piece of art is one of his best is because it combines something that we do every week, grocery shop, with something we waste every week, brown bags, with a number that is so immense that we need a visual to even come close to comprehending it.

            Skull with Cigarettes is another one of his best pieces of art.  He uses cigarette packs to depict the number of people who die every six months from cigarette smoking.  That number is 200,000.  Again, a number that is hard to really understand in paper is shown on a huge print.  What makes this painting stand out from most is that one does not necessarily need to read the caption which tells you what the message is behind the art.  The message is right before the viewer.  There is a skeleton smoking a cigarette showing the dangers of smoking.  Again, this is a message heard daily yet people continue to buy more and more packs.  Chris Johnson is attempting to show just how bad of a problem our nation has with smoking.

            This art exhibit is a fabulously done exhibit where each work of art has a clear and concise message that people can take home with them.  Chris Johnson was not making this art to change all American’s hearts and create a perfect world.  Rather, his goal was to show the American people the depth of our consumption causing us to stop and think for more than the quick moment that tends to happen.  He says, “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.”

Kant

To analyze the quote, “If we judge objects merely according to concepts, then all representation of beauty is lost,” one must realize the point of view that the author, Immanuel Kant, was coming from.  Kant was a German philosopher and who began being known for his aesthetic perspective only in his later years of life.  By going through many different troubles in his life, Kant went through the hard process of completely switching his perspectives of the sublime, good and beauty.  This work, built the foundation for modern aesthetics.  With this in mind, one must realize that modern aesthetics say that art is beautiful for the sole purpose of being beautiful.  There is no deeper meaning that is needed for something to be considered art.  Looking back to the quote, Kant is almost saying the same thing.  He is saying that we cannot look at art according to concepts because when we do, all the beauty that the work of art had will be lost.  No concepts can be made that will allow for the critiquing of art.  This thought process applies directly to what Kant was saying in the earlier reading about taste.  He said that there was no way that taste could be directed by concepts that had come about through the process of a study.  There was no way to completely write down how art was to be felt about.  I think that these two ideas are intertwined with each other.  One can not use a set concept to judge art because the beauty will be lost.  The beauty will be lost because the viewer has a standard of taste that cannot be comprised of solely that concept.  Therefore, because each of us finds something uniquely beautiful about art, art cannot be judged SOLELY according to concepts.

Taste and Hume

After reading Hume and his theory about human taste I am starting to see what would make art, art.  I know that I was the first one to talk in the class this year saying that the blue heart on stadium way was not art.  I was being slightly facetious but I really did not see the artistic appeal to it either.  However, after reading Hume, I really agree with his notion of taste.  This notion is that each person has their own set tastes for all types of art.  He writes that it is not necessarily composed of what you have studied or how one was brought up but rather, it is something that is uniquely inherent in each of us.  He argues that when something strays far from our own taste, we look at it as “barbarous,” or crude and savage.  Applying this even to everyday speech, there are jokes that while some find funny and tasteful, if they drift too far away from another’s taste, they will find the joke crude.  This can also easily bee seen in movies and art.  I know that when I went to go see an art exhibit in Seattle where there were huge paintings of people being killed in China and the exhibit was very controversial.  This is because it was too far away from peoples “taste scale.”  The reason that Hume uses the word taste is because it carries with it the connotation of physically tasting food and drink.  He uses wine as an example of this.  After telling a story of two people drinking wine Hume says that, “The great resemblance between mental and bodily taste will each teach us to apply this story.  Though it be certain that beauty and deformity, more than sweet and bitter, are not qualities in objects, but belong entirely to the sentiment, internal or external; it must be allowed, that there are certain qualities in objects, which are fitted by nature to produce those particular feelings.”  This quote describes exactly the point that Hume is trying to get across.  It is saying that there are certain things that just cause reactions causing in each of us.  This reaction is what Hume associates with taste.