Pictured: Plastic Bags, 2007. Chris Jordan, American.

The International Museum of Art & Science is pleased to announce the opening of Running the Numbers by Seattle-based artist/activist Chris Jordan on Thursday, September 1, 2011. An opening reception with Jordan will be held on September 1st at 6:00pm in which the public is welcomed to attend. Entrance to this event is included in the price of general admission.

Focused on the American culture of consumption and materialism, Running the Numbers takes a look into the world of digital photography in which Jordan beautifully captures the relationship between two paradoxes: art and statistics.

He states, "There's this contrast between the beauty in [my] images and the underlying grotesqueness of the subjects. And it's something that I put there intentionally because I was using beauty as a seduction, to draw the viewer in to sit through the piece long enough that the underlying message might seep in.

Through digital photography, Jordan illustrates the quantities that Americans consume and discard on a daily, and sometimes even hourly basis. Examples like Light Bulbs (2008), which depicts 320,000 light bulbs (equal to the number of kilowatt hours of electricity wasted in the United States every minute from inefficient residential electricity usage) brings to life the cumulative effects of American consumption; something that
Jordan says is "invisible to us".

Lawyer by profession, Chris Jordan began driving around the Seattle/Tacoma area and photographing places where "color [would] appear inadvertently". This in consequence led him to create Running the Numbers, which has been displayed at over 20 museums nationwide in the last four years. Jordan has received national recognition on shows like "The Colbert Report", PBS's "Bill Moyers Journal", and web-sensation "Ted.com".

Running the Numbers will be on display at IMAS from September 1 through December 31, 2011. Chris Jordan
will also hold a talk at IMAS on Saturday, September 3, 2011, at 10:30 am which is included in the price of general admission.

All opening receptions are FREE for IMAS Members, and included in General Admission for non-members: $7 Adults, $5 Seniors/Students w/ID, $4 Children (ages 4-12).

For more information, call IMAS at (956)682-0123.

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