Paul Chan

Born in 1973 in Hong Kong, Chan lives and works in New York. He earned a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1996 and an MFA from Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, in 2002. From the outset of his career, he has worked simultaneously as a political activist and an artist. Despite receiving widespread international recognition, Chan withdrew from artistic production between 2009 and 2014. In 2010, he founded Badlands Unlimited, a publishing house that released over 50 titles, including works by artists of different generations (Yvonne Rainer, Cory Arcangel, Martine Syms), philosophers (from Socrates to Wittgenstein), and Chan himself. In 2014, he returned to art, staging a retrospective at Schaulager in Basel and winning the Hugo Boss Prize from the Guggenheim Foundation. Since then, he has expanded his animation practice beyond the screen with a series of moving nylon figures, whose rippling movements are propelled by electric fans. Their shapes and titles reflect both the artist’s metaphysical and political concerns. In 2022, Chan was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow. In 2022, Chan was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow. His works are included in major collections worldwide, such as the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Art Institute of Chicago; Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation, on permanent loan to the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; M+, Hong Kong; Magasin III, Stockholm; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Tate, London; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Remai Modern, Saskatoon, Canada; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.