In 2009, Chan stopped making art in the traditional sense, for a time, and devoted his attention to founding and operating a publishing enterprise. Chan’s efforts to direct financial support to local organizations as part of the project tested art’s utility in the context of catastrophe. Developed in close consultation with local residents, the production became a way to inspiring and facilitating communal activity. Chan’s next major project was a presentation of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (2007) in the streets of New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward in the long aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Themes of technology, salvation, destruction, and rebirth emerge from this interplay of light and darkness. At other points, the silhouettes of human bodies drop down, recalling images from September 11. In 1st Light, for example, the dark forms of birds, cellphones, cars, and other objects float upward amidst utility poles and powerlines. Called The 7 Lights (2005–2007), the works in the series feature animated silhouettes moving across a plane of light projected onto the floor. His early animations led to a series of digital projections that reflect on religion and social upheavals. Here, utopian fantasies are met with the human capacity for violence. He draws on a wealth of cultural touchstones-from classical philosophy to modern literature, critical theory, and hip-hop culture-to produce works that respond to our current political and social realities, making those realities more immediately available to the mind for contemplation and critical reflection.Īmong Chan’s earliest works are digital animations, including Happiness (Finally) After 35,000 Years of Civilization (after Henry Darger and Charles Fourier) (1999–2003). He makes drawings, sculptures, and digital projections writes essays on culture and history ran a publishing enterprise and staged a play. Paul Chan is an artist striving to express humanity’s complexities and contradictions through an artistic practice that moves across media.

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