"Intolerable Beauty"

Every cyclist has considered what the world might be like if there were fewer cars--and less stuff. Look around on any ride; so much of the junk we see is automobile-related.

Enter Chris Jordan, who manages to turn depressing statistics about junk into stunning art. He's the poet of trash.

Jordan's work brought to mind the old Hawaiian (?) proverb: "Everything is always perfect."

How can man destroy the natural world when he is part of it?

Addendum: A Dutch friend commented that Jordan's art, while impressive at first, eventually seems more like "a trick." Cycling through the Amsterdam suburbs, I saw a lot of Dutch "junk art," mostly sculptures. They might not all have been as well executed as a Jordan creation but many had one quality he doesn't seem to have discovered: a sense of humor.