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Q1 Could you introduce your self? What were your early inspirations?
First, let me say it is an honor to receive this recognition in Japan for the first time. I have hoped for many years to connect with Japan and exhibit my work there, so thank you for noticing me from so many miles across the Pacific.
Although I come from a family of artists, I have been a full-time artist only for a short time. As a young adult I was seduced by ideas of security and wealth, so I went to law school and became a corporate lawyer. I was unhappy in that career, and felt unfulfilled and lost spiritually, but I was afraid to make a change and commit to something more personally rewarding. I stayed stuck for ten years, working long lawyer hours and photographing on the weekends as a hobby. All around me I saw others pursuing their passions-musicians, writers, artists, poets, activists and thinkers of every type, producing amazing and inspiring work and living a different kind of life. But I could not find a route to that side of myself.
It was a sad and frightening time for me. Then as I reached age forty, I became aware of a new kind of fear, which motivated me to finally take the risk: It was the fear of not living my life; of being an old person filled with regret. So I left the legal profession to pursue my photographic work, even if that meant living a more materially humble life. |
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People kept telling me that if I failed as an artist, I could always go back to being a lawyer. I knew that if I had that safety net available, I would find a way to use it, so I resigned my law license to fully commit to my new life.
In the first two years we spent all of our money; my savings went fast; then we cashed in my retirement account; then we cashed in my wife's retirement account. At one point we had $163 left. But then a respected gallery in Los Angeles noticed my work and I had a show there that launched my career as an artist. That was only three years ago, but it still seems like yesterday. |
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I stayed there for a month and took about 200 photographs. I came home from that experience as a different person; my family and friends all noticed it.
Q4 When do you usually get your inspiration for your works?
This is a hard question because I frequently am filled with fear about the creative process. Whenever I consciously try to find a new inspiration, it does not come. When I get worried about the future and try to take control of my creative process, that is when the process stops. I recently experienced this for several months in a row, which was deeply unsettling. |
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We started to run out of money, and I worried that I would never find a new project. I became angry and frightened and tried for many weeks to force myself to photograph. Then with some hard internal work and the help of my teacher, I was able to find my trust again, to let go of the need for control and allow the creative flow to come back to me. I took walks, played my piano, did some reading, stepped away from photography, and even let go of the idea of ever taking another photograph. Then the idea for my new project came to me and I have been working on it ever since. Eventually that will end, and I will face the same issue again.
Letting go like that is difficult, and sometimes I crave the safety and security that I had as a lawyer, where I could just work hard and have a guaranteed result. The challenge now is to hold the anxiety that comes from having no formula for success. A wave of new work comes, and then it passes by and there is a low point in between. For some reason I always lose my trust and forget that another wave will come behind it. Maybe I should go stand at the beach and look at the ocean more often. |
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His works is mysterious, sorrowful, and beautiful.
I was surprised that photographer Chris Jordan has very different background from any other photographers out there. He went to Law school after college, and worked as a corporate lawyer for 10 years. Photography was a hobby on the weekend. However Chris' passion for the photography did not fade away and he decided to leave the legal profession behind. Although it has been only 3 years since he started to devote his life to photography but he had done many solo exhibitions and group shows already. Chris has received high acclaim from all over the world especially his masterpiece, 'In Katrina's Wake' series which he went to New Orleans after hurricane Katrina in 2005. This shocking series shows what was going on down there after the tragic natural disaster and it reminds everyone that 300,000 of US citizens were still suffering.
His new works are an extension of his earlier series, 'Intolerable Beauty' which is about American consumer society. Earlier series portrayed huge piles of the items that we consume- cell phones, crushed cars, computer parts etc. The new series depict the amount of paper we consume in the US every five minutes, the number of sport cars sold in the US in 2004 and the number of containers that are processed through American ports every day etc.
Chris is in the process of scheduling several group and solo exhibitions of his new series.
The schedule will be listed on his website, http://www.chrisjordan.com |
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Q2 Please tell me about a new body of work projects that you will release in early 2007?
My new work is an extension of my earlier "Intolerable Beauty" series about American consumer society. The Intolerable Beauty images portrayed huge piles of the things we consume-cell phones, crushed cars, computer parts and the like. The idea was to convey the cumulative effect of our individual consumer practices. When I have exhibited that series and talked about it over the past few years, I have frequently quoted statistics and numbers; for example, my Cell Phones image shows only a tiny percentage of the 130 million cell phones that we discard in the US every year. Lately I have become interested in trying to show these numbers instead of just talking about them, and that is what my new series is about: depicting the actual quantities of the things we consume.
For example, one new piece called "Office Paper" depicts 15 million sheets of paper-the amount of paper we consume in the United States every five minutes. To photograph 15 million sheets of paper, I made a stack of 5000 sheets on my studio table and photographed it over and over, and then assembled thousands of these small images into one huge digital composite 2x3 meters in size. Another image that I have recently completed is 3x8 meters in size, depicting the number of sport utility vehicles sold in the United States in 2004. Another new image sized 4x4 meters shows 75,000 shipping containers, which the number of containers that are processed through American ports every day.
Q3 Why did you decide to shoot the series of 'In Katrina's Wake'?
After hurricane Katrina in August, 2005, our government was saying everything was being handled fine, and the media kept showing the same photographs of survivors swimming in the water and helicopters rescuing people on the rooftops. But I have friends who live in New Orleans who told me horror stories about the conditions down there. |
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| I did not see any photographs or stories that conveyed the human aspect of the tragedy that my friends described-the profound personal and emotional loss that 300,000 of our citizens were suffering. So I decided to go down there. When I first encountered the enormity of the devastation, all I could feel was pure shock. It was difficult to accept that I was in my own country; New Orleans looked like a bombed-out war zone. Then after a few days I began to connect with the details, people's personal belongings that were spread for miles and miles across the landscape, hanging from trees, smashed into the mud. |
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Q5 Do you have a favorite camera or film to work with? Do you prefer film or digital?
I prefer to use the 8x10 film format whenever possible because of its rich and complex tonal qualities, but I also change cameras frequently for specific projects. My new series is made with a 35mm digital camera, and a few of the new images are not made with a camera at all. In one piece I will depict the number of people who committed suicide in the United States in 2005, which was 31,000 people. This image will consist of thousands of tiny watercolor paintings of the word "Life," that are printed and assembled into a ribbon that will be more than a mile long. For me the medium is secondary; what I really care about is the message I am trying to convey, and so I am willing to push the limits of the medium or even change mediums completely.
Q6 Are there any people who inspired you? Who do you respect?
Strangely enough, I think most of my main inspirations have been musicians. I have played jazz piano since I was a child, and I have always felt that music can nourish and heal the spirit on a fundamental level. My own goal as a photographer is to explore photography's ability to achieve this kind of emotional depth. I doubt I will ever go as far as music can, but at least it is a worthwhile goal to aim for. |
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The work of a few photographers seems to find a way into this territory; Hiroshi Sugimoto has always been one of those for me. His work carries a sense of deep humility and silence that is tremendously powerful and beautiful. We had a major show of his work in the US this year and it was amazing. I also have been inspired by the large-scale color work of Andreas Gursky, and more recently by some of the amazing creative work coming out of China.
Q7 What's coming up in 2007?
2007 will be a risky and exciting year for me. My new series departs totally from anything I have done before; it leaves behind the aesthetic beauty that is the foundation of all of my previous work, and it even departs from traditional ideas of what photography is about. It is not easy to step into the unknown like this, but I care about the underlying message and so I am willing to take the risk. I am in the process of scheduling several group and solo exhibitions of my new series, which will be listed on my website (http://www.chrisjordan.com/). And it would be a great privilege to exhibit my work in Japan if there is any interest in art museums or galleries there.
Q8 Any other message?
Thank you for your interest in my work, with my warm regards from Seattle. |
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