Paul Chan @Guggenheim

From March 6 to May 13, 2015, an exhibition of work by artist Paul Chan, winner of the Hugo Boss Prize 2014, will be on view at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Recognized for his multifaceted and often experimental body of work that includes animated projections, community-based performances, conceptual typefaces, and digital and print publishing, Chan is the tenth artist to receive the Hugo Boss Prize. Established by HUGO BOSS and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1996, the prize honors artists who have made a visionary contribution to the field of contemporary art.

The Hugo Boss Prize 2014: Paul Chan, Nonprojections for New Lovers is organized by Katherine Brinson, Curator, Contemporary Art, and Susan Thompson, Assistant Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

The exhibition will feature the first U.S. presentation of Chan’s series Nonprojections (2013– ), a body of work comprised of video projectors and jury-rigged, power-conducting shoes that are connected by specially designed cords. Although the projectors’ lenses flicker and strobe as if outputting videos, there is no corresponding surface on which imagery might appear. Holding their contents within, these would-be projections remain illegible phantoms, replacing a passive experience of moving images with one that Chan characterizes as “inner-directed, like the ghostly visual impressions that one conjures up in one’s mind when reading a good (or bad) book.” The exhibition will also include a work that signals a new direction in Chan’s practice. Described by the artist as a sculptural animation, this composition of white nylon fabric set in motion by industrial fans evokes an otherworldly apparition.

Nonprojections for New Lovers will incorporate the activities of Chan’s publishing enterprise, Badlands Unlimited. Founded in 2010 as a publisher of books, e-books, and various other formats, Badlands has become an integral part of Chan’s work and operates as a platform for experimental projects by artists and writers. On the occasion of this exhibition, Badlands launches New Lovers, a series which features emerging writers working in the genre of erotica. Inspired by Maurice Girodias’s radical Olympia Press—founded in Paris in 1953 as a publisher for censored works by such authors as Samuel Beckett, William S. Burroughs, and Vladimir Nabokov—New Lovers titles present erotica as a literary form for exploring the complexities of contemporary life. These books will be on view in the gallery and available for purchase in the Guggenheim Stores, which are located on the ground floor and on Rotunda Level 6. On March 10, the Guggenheim will host a book launch featuring readings by the three New Lovers authors, a conversation with Chan, and a book signing.