Paul Chan

From video to drawing, writing to publishing, to kinetic objects and beyond, the Hong Kong-born, New York-based artist Paul Chan has found ever-new means by which to realize a sprawling set of artistic, philosophical, and political positions. Well-versed in Classics and critical theory, modernist literature and ’90s hip-hop, Chan has, since the turn of the 21st century, infused his art with a Homeric quality: cunning, which the artist describes as “twofold or dialectical.” The figure of Odysseus “illustrates in emphatic fashion what I think we intuitively understand,” Chan has said: “that reasoning is discursive and compelling when it is also aesthetical.” Drawing on a disparate array of visual and textual references, his early net-based projects and video installations like My birds... trash... the future (2004) illustrated Chan’s own cunning—his commitment to advancing discourse and aesthetics, each through the other. The 7 Lights (2005) would distill animation further—just light and shadow—immersing the viewer in an interpretation of the Old Testament creation story.

His work is in the collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Art Institute of Chicago; Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation, on permanent loan to the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; M+, Hong Kong; Magasin III, Stockholm; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Tate, London; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Remai Modern, Saskatoon, Canada; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.