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Past Exhibitions: 2014

Paul Chan

Selected Works
12. April – 19 October 2014

In his largest and most comprehensive exhibition to date, Paul Chan (*1973) combines in 2014 existing and new works to create an artfully conceived overall production.

For six months, Schaulager is presenting the art of Paul Chan, born in Hong Kong and based in New York. It is the most extensive exhibition ever of work by this artist, just 40 years old, who has already created a wide-ranging oeuvre that reveals him to be one of the most inventive and multifaceted practitioners in contemporary art. His studies of current political and social issues, as well as the great and timeless concerns of history, literature, and philosophy, are incorporated into his art with lighthearted verve.


Installation view: Works by Paul Chan, © Paul Chan, photo: Tom Bisig

Installation view: Paul Chan, The argument: Antietam, 2013, Volumes, 2012 and Tablet 3, 2014, © Paul Chan, photo: Tom Bisig

Installation view: Paul Chan, Master Argument, 2013
Cords, shoes, concrete, 36.8 cm × 18.1 m × 17.3 m, Courtesy the Artist and Greene Naftali, New York, © Paul Chan, photo: Tom Bisig

Installation view: Works by Paul Chan, © Paul Chan, photo: Tom Bisig


Paul Chan is prototypical of his generation, exploiting the potential of the World Wide Web and its information overkill to excess, redesigning it and establishing links with goal-oriented, unbridled enthusiasm. He is as versed in making videos and installations, in drawing and painting, as he is in writing and lecturing. A closer look at this seemingly disjointed, rampant, and bewildering oeuvre proves it to be consistent, unswerving, and profound. It is our pleasure to invite you to enter into Chan’s exciting universe and discover his exceptional art.

Schaulager’s invitation to mount an exhibition has been an opportunity for Chan to review what he has done so far and to move ahead with his work. In the architectural setting devised specifically for the exhibition, he has playfully arranged existing and new works to create an ingenious display of exceptional impact. You, as viewers, will no doubt be instantly struck by the immediate effect of the works in space. It is your turn to decide how much you wish to invest in the countless issues and questions addressed by the artist. If you embark on this journey of discovery, you will experience and understand things differently, things initially perceived as beautiful and yet disturbing, deeply moving yet alien or even shocking.

Photo: Peter Schnetz, Basel

Paul Chan (born 1973 in Hong Kong) lives and works in New York. Paul Chan’s work has been exhibited in numerous international exhibitions, including documenta 13, Kassel, 2012; Making Worlds, 53rd Venice Biennale, Venice, 2009; Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of Art, New York, 2006, and 54th Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, 2004. Recent solo shows include Paul Chan: The 7 Lights, Serpentine Gallery, London, and New Museum, New York, 2007–2008. In 2007 Paul Chan collaborated with the Classical Theatre of Harlem and Creative Time to produce a site-specific outdoor presentation of Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot. His essays and interviews have been published in Artforum, Frieze, Flash Art, October, Tate Etc., Parkett, Texte zur Kunst, and Bomb Magazine, as well as in other magazines and journals. In 2010 he founded his publishing company Badlands Unlimited.

What is a word? What is a thing? What is knowledge? Who am I? How to live? Is there light without shadow? Reason without cunning? What is art? What big questions those are—questions that motivate philosophy, religion, and society; direct and immediate questions like those children ask; questions that suddenly come to mind while driving, taking a shower, or in those tenuous moments when daily life seems absurd, habits bizarre, and certainty suspect. And they are questions that leave no one unmoved, that release a torrent of churning ideas and associations, and drag thoughts along in the maelstrom.


Paul Chan, My Birds… trash… the future, 2004


We are similarly struck by the works of Paul Chan, for they take a simple and immediate tack but to ports of great complexity. They meander through the crucial themes of history, philosophy, and literature, through great and elusive themes that suddenly come very close and seem self-evident in Chan’s treatment of word and image. His digitally animated works, installations, drawings, and sculptures appear clear and simple at first sight: luminous colors, familiar materials, clear structures, patent contrasts. The works have the lure of sirens and arrest our attention. And when we give them time, they reveal the ambivalence and abyss that loom behind their beauty. The eloquent titles of the works read like sibylline prophecies, with molting ambiguities that ironically undercut appearances.

Paul Chan, Social Security, 2012


Paul Chan, Oh why so serious?, 2008

Paul Chan is a superb storyteller, a man of twists and turns. In the exhibition at Schaulager, the works are arranged to give each of them a singular voice while, at the same time, revealing their part in the flow of the larger narrative. The tension sustained throughout the entire exhibition is instantly felt in the Arguments, that connect the rooms like a loosely woven fabric or like the thread of Ariadne that provides orientation in the Minotaur’s labyrinth. An Odyssey?


One can get lost in the mesh of Chan’s works; they pose riddles and leave clues that lead into impenetrable thickets. The works speak a language that is not immediately comprehensible; many things are alien, others familiar. Some of Chan’s references immediately ring a bell; other sources require further study. The quotations and ideas, the historical relations and literary foundations are rooted equally in our culture and our everyday life. Allusion and reference in the work of Paul Chan are deprived of their origins and consumed by a new order, only to crop up again as familiar voices, like an echo, in the alienation that informs the works in this oeuvre.

The exhibition is conceived in terms of axes: heaven and earth, the here and the hereafter, the dream of an alternative world and the reality of ours. On the ground floor, visitors encounter and explore the byways of positive and negative utopias; on the floor below they are confronted with relentlessly raw scenarios of reality. But don’t worry, it’s only art. And how can anybody be afraid of art?


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Catalogue

The catalogue to the exhibition “Paul Chan – Selected Works,” held at the Schaulager Basel in 2014, was developed by the artist in collaboration with graphic designers and is intended as a “picture book within a book.” At its heart is the overwhelming wealth of images in the “Selected Source Files” series. The collages of heterogeneous material testify to the wide-
ranging sources of inspiration and the visual context on which the artist has drawn in his work. A cleverly conceived essay by Daniel Birnbaum
is an aid to deeper understanding. Photographs of the installations on view in the exhibition, a list of works, and commentary linking the individual groups of work round off the publication.


Paul Chan
Selected Works
Exhibition catalogue, published by the Laurenz Foundation, Schaulager Basel and Badlands Unlimited, New York

With an essay by Daniel Birnbaum

386 pages, 20.5 × 25.5 cm, approx. 300 coloured illustrations, softcover
Texts in German and English
1st edition 2014


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Artist’s book

Over 1000 pages long, this comprehensive, elaborately bound artist’s book documents “Volumes,” Paul Chan’s work consisting of 1005 book covers, a selection of which was exhibited at documenta 13 in 2012, and which now belongs to the Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation’s collection. In 2014, it was shown in its entirety for the first time as part of the exhibition “Paul Chan – Selected Works.” For each book, Paul Chan removed the book block from the cover and then individually overpainted it. For
“New New Testament,” Chan has written texts, which are juxtaposed with the individual picture pages. These texts draw on a wide spectrum of writings, from the philosophical, art theoretical, and the literary to the trivial, and the artist has also interwoven them with playfully ironic character sets. Deciphering these beautiful and enigmatic texts is a particular delight.

Paul Chan
New New Testament
Artist’s book, published by the Laurenz Foundation, Schaulager Basel, and Badlands Unlimited, New York

With an essay by Sven Lütticken

1092 pages, 17.8 × 26.7 cm, 1005 coloured illustrations, hardcover
Texts in German and English
1st edition 2014


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Credits
3rd Light, ( detail ), 2006, digital video projection ( color, silent ) and table, Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation, gift of the president, 2010, on permanent loan to the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel, photo : Jean Vong

Volumes, (detail), 2012, installation consisting of 1005 painted book covers, Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation, gift of the president, 2012, on permanent loan to the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel, photo: Bisig & Bayer

The argument: Antietam, (detail), 2013, cords, shoes, concrete, courtesy the artist and Greene Naftali, New York, Fphoto: Tom Bisig

The body of Oh young Augustine ( truetype font ), (detail), 2009, ink on paper and mixed media, Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation, gift of the president, 2010, on permanent loan to the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel, photo: Bisig & Bayer

Volumes, (installation view), 2012, installation consisting of 1005 painted book covers, Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation, gift of the president, 2012, on permanent loan to the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel, photo: Bisig & Bayer

Master Argument, (installation view) , 2013, cords, shoes, concrete, courtesy the Artist and Greene Naftali, New York, photo: Bisig & Bayer

My birds ... trash ... the future, (video still), 2004, Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation, gift of the president, 2010, on permanent loan to the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel

Social Security, 2012, cords, outlets, courtesy the artist and Greene Naftali, New York, photo: Jason Mandella

Oh why so serious?, 2008, plastic and electronics, Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation, gift of the president, 2010, on permanent loan to the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel, photo: Tom Bisig

all works © Paul Chan