Many labels are associated with Paul Chan: multi-media artist, political activist, and publisher, to say the least. Categories seems rather futile for understanding his practice. Selected as the winning artist of 2014 Hugo Boss Prize, Chan is clearly well loved by the art world at the moment; curators praise his work as “wide-ranging” and “multidisciplinary”, while he seems deliberately to keep some distance from traditional notions of artistry. In this regard, Chan has pushed to expand the boundary of the artist’s jurisdiction.
Paul Chan Die All Jennies 1, 2013, © Paul Chan. Photo: Tom Bisig, Basel
Paul Chan’s new work Nonprojections has a limpness on first glimpse that turns into absorbency as you stick with it. Projectors lie on the floor, connected by cable wires and shoes; cement filled shoes; a piece of cardboard propped below one of the projectors, holding some mysterious leakage as if it were a diaper. No screens or walls host the moving images, and only green lights flicker in vain from the powered projectors. Nonprojections mocks viewers who would take it too seriously or too lightly.
Back in 2002, Happiness (Finally) After 35,000 Years of Civilization, a powerful animation piece depicting utopian and apocalyptic fantasies that Chan created while still studying at Bard College received critical acclaim and subsequently landed him a show at Greene Naftali Gallery. Since then, Chan’s work has been shown widely around the world, including Whitney Biennial (2006), Istanbul Bienali (2007), Stedelijk Museum (2007), Sydney Biennial (2008), Venice Biennale (2009), dOCUMENTA 13, ZKM (2014), amongst many others. Paul Chan has worked in a variety of mediums, from documentary videos in Iraq and conceptual typefaces to public performances in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. However, in 2009, he abruptly announced a hiatus from art making and started an experimental press, Badlands Unlimited, to publish and distribute works related to his interests. The venture has produced everything from unknown interviews of Marcel Duchamp to speeches on democracy by Saddam Hussein, and lately also a series of erotic fictions written by emerging female writers.
Nonprojections for New Lovers at the Guggenheim, the exhibition entailed by the Hugo Boss Prize, would mark the first time he’s shown in New York since his retirement announcement after nearly five years. On the day of the opening, Paul Chan was absent from the entire press conference. He remained upstairs secluded in the museum office for scheduled interviews only. “No photography allowed,” whispered the staff who led me through a series of doors before finally meeting the artist. With cool snark and self-deprecation, Chan talked about his new work, his political sensibility, and turn-ons.
Installation view: The Boss Prize 2014: Paul Chan, Nonprojections for New Lovers, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Photo: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
Jiayin Chen: In 1971, the artist Hans Haacke created a controversial piece, Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, A Real Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971, for his show at the Guggenheim. The work documented the questionable transactions of Shapolsky’s business and the gentrification of the city by one of the biggest slum lords of New York City. However, the exhibition was forced to shut down before the opening because of the business and personal connection of the museum’s trustees to Shapolsky. Many of your works are also considered political. Can you tell us about your new work here? In a previous interview, you said your work Nonprojections shows “works on strike.” What are they striking against?
Paul Chan: I think what they fundamentally at strike against is being themselves. For Nonprojections, I use all the elements that enable you to have a video projection, but nothing comes out. And in Arguments, I have these live wires that conduct electricity, but they don’t power anything. So in many ways for me, they are at strike by not being themselves. And I think Haacke’s show would be a great example of a piece of ensemble of works that are on strike against someone in particular, in this case, the relationship between art and money. In Hans’s case, his work has no problem being what it is, you know, it is what it is. I think for the works that I tend to make, maybe it’s because of who I am, they have a problem with being what they essentially are.
JC: Why are you so fascinated by the idea of something not being what it is?
PC: I think we tend to be most fascinated by things that we are attracted to, and perhaps have an understanding of, somehow. I think that’s why.
JC: Does the fact that you won the Hugo Boss Prize and entered the Guggenheim, I mean this “institutionalization”, make your work less political and critical? How can you balance your role as a political activist with an artist?
PC: I first have to say that I have been institutionalized for some time. This is certainly not the first time I have been in an institution. And I think the question of whether or not it diminishes my capacity as someone with political sensibilities is a good question. I don’t honestly know. Uh, I do know that my past has been filled with political experiences. And honestly, I haven’t done a lot of political work later in my life. So, I think in many ways people understanding me as an activist is an understanding that’s old. Like, they are thinking of me in terms of, maybe, seven or eight years ago. Now I am not that different of a person, but I am different enough to know that my political core has changed. So the question then becomes whether or not that change is worth thinking about. I was simply younger and more connected politically with certain people. I did some great works, some terrible works, and some terrible but great works too. And we all sort of moved on to do other things. Whether or not that political sensibility is still evident is a good question, and I can’t rightly say. I don’t know either. But I do know that the people that I worked with, that I care very much about and still keep in contact with—I have a friend who is in prison right now, who is doing three and a half months in Kentucky for protest, and I have another friend just got out of prison for her legal work on behalf of people accused of terrorism—these relationships I cherish. But whether or not that those relationships come to manifest as artworks is less important to me now.
Installation view: The Boss Prize 2014: Paul Chan, Nonprojections for New Lovers, Photo: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
Paul Chan, Sock N Tease, 2013. Concrete, cords, shoes, and video projectors with digital color video, silent. Courtesy the artist and Greene Naftali, New York. © Paul Chan. Photo: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
Promotional image for New Lovers Pictured: Jasper Briggs and Alexandra Marzella Courtesy of Badlands Unlimited.
JC: New Lovers is a new erotica series from your publishing venture Badlands Unlimited. What’s the difference between pornography and erotica?
PC: I think one way we distinguish it is by thinking of sex and pleasure as being relational. And I don’t mean that by boyfriend and girlfriend, or husband and wife, but certain ways of thinking about the sex and pleasure, to make it so they are not isolated acts. Sex and pleasure are interdependent on so many other things in order for them to be sexual, or pleasurable. So in a way, sex has never been just about sex, which I think is also the truth of living life. When sex and pleasure are simply about sex and pleasure, it’s usually not terribly pleasing. I think one way to think about the difference between pornography and erotica is that in pornography, sex is just about sex, whereas in erotica, we realize, and I believe this, and it’s frankly more true, that sex and pleasure are much more than sex and pleasure.
JC: Pornography is often judged by how “real” it is. Does the orgasm sound fake? Are the body parts supplemented? Is the situation fictional? And so on. Is this anxiety and desire for reality is less present in erotica, which is more fanciful and invented?
PC: Yeah. I would say that in pornography, they’re after something. They believe that the ultimate form of pleasure is something that looks and feels most “real”, right? We have the weight of something real. That’s why in pornography, they are very into “describing something” and “showing you something”, so that it looks real, but we also know that sex and pleasure, the power of sex and pleasure is not dependent on something being very “as real as it can be”, that it is more like a feeling or a mood, and that it conjures inner experiences, and inner images that may not have the weight of reality but are no less powerful. So, in that sense, I think you are right. I mean there are many differences, like historically, pornography was considered stories about escorts, about prostitutes, about exchanging sex for money, and the pleasure about hearing stories of sex being exchange for money, or many other things. Erotica, on the other side, is not about that typical kind of exchange, it’s more relational.
Courtesy of Badlands Unlimited
From the series Lovers (New York: Badlands Unlimited) Photo: Badlands Unlimited (2015)
JC: What books are you reading recently? Besides New Lovers…
PC: Actually I haven’t read a book in quite some time. I’ve been a little busy. But I’ve read an interesting essay by philosopher names Mark Johnston, he is an analytic philosopher, who writes about religion. He recently wrote a book called Surviving Death, which is an account of how we can think of living beyond our own death, and it’s one of the most fascinating, perverse books I’ve ever read. That was the last book I read. I have also read a few menus recently, to order food, and they were pretty good menus..
JC: Such as?
PC: There was a great menu for Middle Eastern food that we read. There is also a new Caribbean restaurant that has nice Caribbean food; the jerk chicken was very good.
JC: Badlands Unlimited, a publishing venture you founded in 2010, has published some intriguing books, such as essays on democracy written by Saddam Hussein, never-made public interviews of Marcel Duchamp and now New Lovers, an erotica fiction series. What is your strategy to expand your audience?
PC: We try to do it book by book. I think there’s no secret to it. We just try to put out the most interesting books that we can. And be sure to make them affordable and accessible, both in paper and eBook form. After that, we don’t know what else to do. The paper books are distributed through DAP in America, and Koenig Books distributes books in Europe. Ebooks are distributed through Apple and Amazon, and we think about the distribution all the time.
Remarks from Curator Susan Thompson
JC: Can you talk a little about this new work, described by the artist as a “sculptural animation”, Tetra Gummi Phone, 2014-2015?
ST: This is a brand new work, which I think will signal a brand new series of work that he’s working on. It’s comprised of nylon fabrics, woven together in various shapes in such a way that when activated by the air of the fan, it moves in a rather prescribed ways, it seems to have a life of its own. The four elements interacting with one another, as they kind of underlay and dance together in the air, I find to be mesmerizing. Also the work draws on the concept of pneuma, which means “breath” or “spirit”, or “air” in Greek, about how the force is activating them. This work can also be understood as a sculptural animation, a literal embodiment of a projection in that material projected from the wall into the real space, so it has taken some of the themes that Chan has addressed in his earlier works, as well as his digital screen-based figural animations, and brought them into new materials and into new spaces.
JC: Paul Chan’s work has touched on diverse topics and is expressed through different mediums; what should we know about Paul Chan?
ST: Chan’s practice is really multi-medium and wide-ranging; from the early animated projections to the 7 lights, the digital light projections for which he is known for, to the performance project Waiting for Godot in New Orleans. He’s also worked with the experimental fonts, which subsequently led into the launching of his own eBook and publishing venture Badlands Unlimited. All of these aspects are exciting, and with this exhibition, we are really pleased to be premiering his new work, Nonprojections, 2013-, and also participating in the book launch of a brand new series from Badlands titled New Lovers.
JC: While collaborating with Paul Chan, were there times when you had to compromise with each other? How do you interpret Paul Chan’s work under the context of a museum exhibition? What’s your take?
ST: Not particularly. Chan was wonderful to work with and his proposal to present these three bodies of work immediately made sense, this aspect of approaching moving-image making, from these alternative vantage points. We are used to seeing moving images in a very specific way, to be conditioned to seeing moving image in a rather passive way: you entered a space and you see a screen. But here the viewer participates in the completion of the work. The viewer has to engage with the text to complete the images in the mind. Nonprojections is not a passive experience where you see a screen. Instead, you actually have to walk along and look and think, and then think again about what you are looking at. You have to really engage with the physical installation of the work.
JC: What is so compelling about Paul Chan’s work?
ST: It’s so diverse. I think the work in the show is a good introduction to a new audience for Chan’s work. It does embody so many of modes of inquiry he pursues and really responds to the conditions of contemporary life. You could say the work is about the oversaturation of image culture. That ever-questioning kind of restless mode of inquiry is just really compelling.
Paul Chan Plow Highness, 2013 Courtesy the artist and Greene Naftali, New York © Paul Chan. Photo: Tom Bisig, Basel
Paul Chan, Sock N Tease, 2013 Concrete, cord, shoes, and Courtesy the artist and Greene Naftali, New York © Paul Chan. Photo: Tom Bisig, Basel
