Paul Chan, Khara En Penta (Joyer in 5), 2019 Courtesy the artist and Greene Naftali, New York
On November 17, the Walker Art Center will open the first major U.S.-based museum exhibition of works by artist, writer, and publisher Paul Chan in 15 years. Chan, who was recently awarded the prestigious 2022 MacArthur Fellowship, came to prominence in the early 2000s with vibrant moving image works that touched on aspects of war, religion, pleasure, and politics. Around 2009, Chan embarked on what he described as a “breather” from the art world, turning his attention to experimental publishing by founding the press Badlands Unlimited. The forthcoming exhibition, titled Paul Chan: Breathers, traces the artist’s return to artmaking through approximately 40 works and suites of objects, including a new installation made especially for the Walker. Together, the featured works capture Chan’s creative and conceptual innovations, from his publishing through to his current experimentations with the boundless possibilities of the moving image. Following its presentation at the Walker, on view through July 16, 2023, the exhibition will travel to the Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU and Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.
To mark the opening of the exhibition, the Walker will host a conversation between Paul Chan and writer Aruna D’Souza that explores the significance of the “breather”—a self-imposed break to turn away from familiar ways of working. In particular, Chan and D’Souza will explore the importance of maintaining joy in work, finding energy and enthusiasm to experiment with new ways of creating art, and the importance of rest. The event is free to the public and will be held on November 17, at 6:00 pm. More information is available on the Walker website. The institution will also host a special Member Preview on November 16.
Paul Chan: Breathers surveys the artist’s recent work in three chapters. It opens with the radical publications produced by Badlands Unlimited, including selections of paperbacks, e-books, zines, GIFs, protest signs, and books on stone tablets across such genres as erotic fiction, artists’ writings, and poetry. Badlands Unlimited was established in 2010 with the vision to challenge and expand the possibilities of publishing through experimentations with language, technology, design, and networks of circulation. The presentation in Breathers offers visitors a look at Badland Unlimited’s creative production, illuminating Chan’s interest in breaking the barriers of a given field or genre—a sensibility that he carried forward as he gradually began making art again.
In 2012, Chan began considering the possibilities that could result from freeing the moving image from the screen and the confines of the frame more broadly. His Arguments series (2012-2013) featured electrical cords plugged into a spectrum of objects and surfaces, from walls and doors to furniture to concrete-filled shoes. Presented in myriad configurations, the Arguments isolated the electric currents necessary for a projection from any functional projecting body. These works gave way to the Nonprojections (2013), which separated the working projector—its lights flickering—from any surface onto which it could illuminate an image. These works, which broke the natural processes of projection and animation, laid the groundwork for his newest explorations.
The artist’s latest works, part of the Breathers series, explore animation through sculptural forms in three-dimensional space. Composed of nylon fabric figures and forms set in motion by industrial fans, the Breathers shift the action of the moving image into real space and in connection with the people in it. Chan has taken the same precision to the choreography of motion with these kinetic installations as with the intricate animations of his early career. At the same time, the billowing forms convey a sense of openness and breath—a notion central to Chan’s life and career since 2009 and one that is amazingly astute in its relationship to our contemporary climate, as we all grapple with the ramifications of the pandemic, the proliferation of digital screens, and the profound and pervasive communal sense of burnout.
“In 2009, I was questioning my work, my motivations, and what art really meant to me. I needed to take a breather—something I believe is critical to how we renew our capacity for new thoughts and feelings. What I learned from that break has become central to my practice now,” said Chan. “My newest work is a kind of choreography animated by breath, and it is providing me with the means to imagine movement and the moving image way beyond the screen. I could not have foreseen how significant these ideas would become during these hard and mean times, as our lives become increasingly mediated by digital screens. It feels important to break art and ourselves from those frames, to be present and breathing in the moment.”
“It takes courage to turn away from familiar ways of doing things and search instead for new possibilities and meaning in life and work,” said Pavel Pyś, the Walker’s curator, Visual Arts. “This exhibition shows how Paul consistently challenges and expands the possibilities of publishing, activism, and the limits of how we understand the moving image medium. We are thrilled to present the exhibition and catalogue that together shed light on shifts in Paul’s practice across the last decade.”
The exhibition is accompanied by a Walker designed and published catalogue created in close collaboration with the artist, with contributions by Pavel S. Pyś, Vic Brooks, and Paul Chan. The exhibition is curated by Pyś, with additional support from Matthew Villar Miranda, curatorial fellow, Visual Arts.
Exhibition Tour:Walker Art Center: November 17, 2022–July 16, 2023Institute for Contemporary Art at VCU: September 8, 2023–January 7, 2024Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis: March 8–August 11, 2024