In Paul Chan: Breathers, electric fans give life to brightly colored nylon figures that billow and dance. They move, unconstrained. In Chan’s work Khara En Penta (Joyer in 5), five figures are arranged in a circle, attached in a way that mimics holding hands. Each figure’s movement is relational to the other four. These figures, and the others that fill the space, will be on display at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis from March 8–August 11.
“The title refers to many aspects of the word ‘breathers.’ It’s the title of a series of work I began making in 2015–2016, but it also reflects how I came to make these works, which is by taking a breather,” Chan says.
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Chan’s art career took off in the early 2000s with his animation work, which referenced topics such as the war in Iraq and Biblical imagery.
“I was very grateful for the opportunities I had from the undeserved luck that I got from making work that people found appealing and interesting, but at a certain point, it felt like a job,” he says of his decision to take a long break—a breather, one might say—from art.
He used this time to explore experimental publishing and in 2010 founded Badlands Unlimited press. Chan had always wanted to publish books, the timing with e-books was right, and being in New York, he was surrounded by “an embarrassment of riches.”
The city was full of artists and writers who had interesting things to say but no platform in which to share them. Chan became that platform and spent nearly a decade publishing dozens of books, including the New Lovers series, Marcel Duchamp: The Afternoon Interviews, and many more. He ended his art hiatus in 2014 with an exhibition in Basel, Switzerland. Breathers is the artist’s first major U.S.–based exhibit in 15 years.
Returning to art and creating it on his own terms has been freeing for Chan, even when the work sometimes isn’t.
“It’s actually kind of dreadful, but I love it,” he says. “I’m doing a new shape right now that looks like a tree that moves in an underwater sea. It’s taken us 40 iterations, so that means we’ve had to sew this piece of fabric over 40 times.
“I just have to do it by trial and error, and I think that uncertainty can be hard sometimes. But it’s definitely the flavor of the kind of life I want to live.”
MOVING ON
Artist Paul Chan shifts his focus while embracing a long-held fascination with movement.
Although Chan’s new work may seem like a departure from his video installations from the early 2000s, he says his time away helped him realize that he’s always been more interested in movement than images, and movement doesn’t need to be confined to screens. “I hit peak screen,” Chan says. “I saw my future, and it was one where I was surrounded by screens, and I didn’t want it.
“Saying no to something doesn’t necessarily mean a loss,” Chan adds. “It can be a gain in some way. I’m not a gambler, but I’ve always been willing to lose, and I think that sense of trying something where you don’t know how it’s going to turn out is maybe the thing that I appreciate most about what I’ve learned in contemporary art.”
