Our old friend Chris Jordan

[tim atherton]

Oh, and kinda P.S. . can photographs carry 'objective meaning? I'm pretty sure I saw a Don MCCullin photo of a grieving Indian mother cradling her child dead from starvation. Not hard to interpret.

there's a fairly good article with discussion on this whole topic which I just came across


http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2007...housand-words/

[Michael T. Murphy]

My god is a lowly mollusk with a pinhole lens eye!

Thanks Walter! I like that article a lot.

Here is metaphysics from the Metta Sutra:

As you stand, walk, sit or lie,
So long as you are awake,
Pursue this awareness with your might:
It is deemed the Divine Abiding - here and
now.

[dslater]

Chris Jordan was the guest on the Colbert Report tonight. Some here have questioned whether what he's doing is art. I think it is definitely art - he is using his photographic skills to point out the results of our disposable culture - something most people don't want to think about because it makes them uncomfortable. After all, isn't that what art is really about - showing society uncomfortable things about itself so people are forced to think?

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Chris Jordan was the guest on the Colbert Report tonight. Some here have questioned whether what he's doing is art. I think it is definitely art - he is using his photographic skills to point out the results of our disposable culture - something most people don't want to think about because it makes them uncomfortable. After all, isn't that what art is really about - showing society uncomfortable things about itself so people are forced to think?

Awww hell, I wish you had not asked this, because I cannot help but wonder if it really makes the viewer think? Having been to many gallery openings I can just imagine how it will go.

Those who are not there to show off their knowledge, drink the wine or try to pick up the girl in the little black dress will be looking at the prints and going "wow, these are really big" those who don't know anything about photoshop will be saying " I wonder where he took these shots" or "damn he must have spent a lot of time standing up all those cigarrettes" or some will be saying "are those Berettas? Where can I get some of those?" or "look, there is my cell phone, no wonder there are so many of them in the trash, it is a POS!"

As I said before, the work is clever and very well done, but I think it suffers from desensitation. After looking at a few of the panels, people will stop getting the message and will start to look a the work itself. This is good for Jordan, but not necessarily conducive to introspection.

Is it art? I think it is, in fact he has taken digital in a new direction and this is good to see.

[Jeremy Moore]

Here's Chris Jordan on the Colbert Report:

http://tinyurl.com/39mmts

[Michael T. Murphy]

Some here have questioned whether what he's doing is art.

What Chris is doing has *much* more in common with the contemporary art world than most of the work I see from most photographers.

Honestly, I think photographers are the least broadly educated of artists and have the least perspective on the art world of any group of artists that I have encountered. (Aside from the folks that do watercolors of flowers.)

That is, they are, in general, *very* conservative!

If you want to talk more broudly about art, we have to start by adressing conceptualism. That means Duchamp, Bueys, folks like Yoko Ono and Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons and Paul McCarthy. I rarely see those types of discussions on any photography forum.

I have to admit I am somewhat mired in the backwaters of traditional photography.
But I still love the classic/historical conceptual work, and much of the more imaginative newer work.

In the art world, there are two groups: photographers, and "artists using photography." The first group, overall, is the ghetto group, and prices are about 10% or less of the folks in the 2nd group. They run in different circles and show in different galleries, with a few notable exceptions: Gursky, Wall, Struth, Crewdson, etc.

Best,
Michael

[paulr]

What Chris is doing has *much* more in common with the contemporary art world than most of the work I see from most photographers.

That's close to what he's said himself. He's stopped calling himself a photographer ... maybe to avoid annoying more traditional photographers.