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On Light and Screen Sickness. Paul Chan: Nonprojections for New Lovers (2015)
For several years now, Paul Chan (Hong Kong, 1973) has suffered from screen sickness. One symptom of this condition is visual fatigue caused by exposure to projected moving images. The artist is intolerant of any presentation that transforms a surface into a luminous screen. Although self-diagnosis may itself be a symptom of hypochondria, Chan’s investigations into the roots of his illness were published in the essay “On Light as Midnight and Noon.” As part of his treatment, the artist avoids looking at the images on the screen and instead directs his gaze toward the projector’s lens. Turning his back on the projection, the source of light becomes the sun itself. Like Icarus, Chan cannot resist the temptation to approach it.
This shift in perspective has led him to create a series of nonfigurative projection exercises. Titled Nonprojections, these works are composed of flickering projectors powered by an installation of cables and shoes that conduct electricity. Questioning the projector’s conventional role as a medium of transmission, the artist instead constructs luminous spectra that do not aspire to become images and are therefore directed at no screen whatsoever. By refusing to direct the light, Chan prevents the projectors from fulfilling the function for which they were designed, reconsidering the value of the apparatus as an end in itself—as a producer and enabler of illumination.
At the beginning of last year, the Hugo Boss Prize published a catalogue featuring the work of Chan and that of four other artists selected to compete for the 2014 edition of the award: Sheela Gowda, Camille Henrot, Hassan Khan, and Charline von Heyl. Designed by Gilles Gavillet, the publication is a vital component of the prize, containing special projects by the finalists as well as essays on their work, functioning as “a two-dimensional group exhibition.”
As part of the catalogue, artist Petra Cortright described Chan’s work as “classical Greek + (fire-air-water-earth)” in a text whose format draws from social media writing and post-Internet language. This characterization is reflected in Chan’s contribution to the publication: a pair of Venn diagrams, references to ancient Greek philosophy, a series of abstract drawings, and an urban landscape that shifts from day to night across its pages.
With a body of work that includes animation, light projection, sculpture, book publishing, installation, community-based performance, and a long history of social and political activism, Chan has become one of the most compelling artists of recent years. At a ceremony held at the Guggenheim Museum in New York last November, Chan was announced as the tenth recipient of the Hugo Boss Prize, joining a list of previous winners that includes Matthew Barney, Tacita Dean, and Danh Vo. Although he appeared grateful and pleased during the event, the artist remarked that receiving the award meant that his work had been misunderstood. Nevertheless, it also meant a prize of one hundred thousand dollars and a solo exhibition.
Beginning in March, the Hugo Boss Prize and the Guggenheim presented Nonprojections for New Lovers, an exhibition bringing together different facets of Chan’s practice. On one hand, his phenomenological explorations of light and his distancing from image production take form through the Nonprojections. Another component of the exhibition consists of the publication of three erotic novels written by emerging authors, a collaboration with Badlands Unlimited, the artist’s experimental publishing project dedicated to producing artists’ books in both physical and digital formats.
With its commitment to recognizing outstanding artistic practices regardless of nationality, age, or medium, the Hugo Boss Prize remains one of the most important platforms for the dissemination and patronage of contemporary art. Every two years, a specialized jury reviews the work of numerous artists and selects a group of five or six finalists for consideration. The exhibitions produced by the winners have often become some of the most experimental projects in the Guggenheim’s history. Amid lights, e-books, and screen sickness, Nonprojections for New Lovers stands as one of the year’s most anticipated exhibitions.