September
12th – October 19th, 2019
Greene
Naftali is pleased to announce Paul Chan’s solo exhibition entitled The
Bather’s Dilemma. This is his fourth solo exhibition at the gallery. The
Bather’s Dilemma features a new series of works Chan calls “Bathers.” The
Bathers belong to the genre of moving-image works pioneered by Chan that he
calls “Breathers,” which debuted in his 2017 exhibition Rhi Anima at the
gallery.
Artists
have explored the theme of the “bather” throughout history. In the 19th and
early 20th centuries, artists like Cézanne and Matisse took up this motif to
express evolving notions about the body, changing ideas about pleasure, one’s
relationship to nature, and how the longing for the new (in art) potentially
renews a broader and more inclusive understanding of what it means to live with
or against societal changes. Chan takes up this age-old trope to redescribe the
constellation of themes and ideas the “bather” embodies for what is turning out
to be a dismal 21st century.
Like the
Breathers, the Bathers are constructed out of nylon fabric and powered by
specially modified industrial fans. Each bather was designed by Chan to animate
solely by how the fabric “body” reacts to and against the air pressure from the
fans. Combining knowledge and experience from fields as disparate as fashion,
physics (specifically fluid dynamics), and sculpture, Chan’s novel technique creates
aerodynamic forces like lift and drag within the internal structure of the body
to harness the fans’ air flow in order to govern a bather’s movements.
In Phenus 1
(2019), the image of a shameless bathing figure displaying themself while
holding a towel from behind is animated by two countervailing movements. The
insistent swaying forward and backward of the jet-black body’s lower section is
counterpoised against the undulating and gyrating motion of the upper section.
The rocking motion in the lower section is achieved by air flow pushing against
the two connected, slightly unequal tube-like shapes, which creates the
imbalance (the fluid dynamical term is “turbulent flow”) necessary to generate
the specific movement. The fabric shell that make up the upper section also
determines the air flow. But here, there are three openings where air escapes
(one in each of the “elbows” and one on the “back”). These openings act like
“thrusters,” in effect pushing the upper section in three distinct directions.
The curvature where the upper and lower sections meet induces more turbulence,
essentially forcing the air to press against the upper section in many
different directions. The white “towel” (with a specific weight of eight grams)
acts as a counterweight, both exaggerating the movement generated by the air
rushing out of the three openings and easing the transition of the body as it
gestures rhythmically from one axis of direction to the next.
Katabasis
(2019) sways from side to side as four bathers in various states of undress are
connected at the arms, enabling air to enter and exit from any and all the
figures. The lateral air flow traveling between the figures push and pull them
into a particular ensemble of movements. Katabasis cycles from synchronic and
ecstatic dancing to conflicting individual gestures to a state of homeostasis
where all four figures are tensely, momentarily, still. This effectively imbues
the work with the sense that the four bathers are either working together to
travel in one direction, fighting amongst themselves about which way to go, or
are too conflicted to move in any direction at all. The logo on the muscle
shirt worn by the third figure (from the left) obliquely references part of
their dilemma. Designed as an homage to the iconic Gold’s Gym logo, the image
is encircled by a Latin phrase made famous by philosopher Thomas Hobbes
(1588-1679) in his work Leviathan – “Bellum omnium contra omnes,” which
translates as “the war of all against all.” The word katabasis itself also
expresses something like the uncertainty of where they (or we) ought to go.
Katabasis is an ancient Greek term for either traveling towards a coast where
water is, or a decent into Áïdēs, also known as the underworld.
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