Art and Escape

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Paul Chan, "Bathers at Night," 2018

installation view at the Remai Modern, Saskatoon (photo by Blaine Campbell)

American artist Paul Chan is a smooth operator. He prefaced his artist’s talk, inaugurating his solo exhibition, Bathers at Night, at the Remai Modern in Saskatoon, by thanking every gallery staff member he’d met – by name, with no notes. He continued by invoking Zeno (the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher), xenophobia and the virtues of hospitality to strangers. The lavish display of gratitude, coupled with the classical reference, upcycled and read as a lesson in relational aesthetics, was remarkable for setting up what was, ostensibly, a technical presentation of his work – one almost completely devoid of contemporary interpretation.

Odd, given his accomplishments as a critical writer published in esteemed international journals such as Artforum, October, Texte zur Kunst and Frieze, as well as his well-known work as activist. Moreover, his presentation was peppered throughout with references to Plato, Aristotle, Genesis, Cezanne and Matisse. He confessed that he doesn’t read the news and that he is near-sighted, refusing to wear corrective glasses and revelling in the kind of othered perception that myopia bestows – all tropes of a very artistic artiste.

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Paul Chan, "Bathers at Night," 2018

installation view at the Remai Modern, Saskatoon (photo by Blaine Campbell)

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Paul Chan, "Bathers at Night," 2018

installation view at the Remai Modern, Saskatoon (photo by Blaine Campbell)

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Paul Chan, "Bathers at Night," 2018

installation view at the Remai Modern, Saskatoon (photo by Blaine Campbell)

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Bathers at Night, on view until July 29, is decidedly non-immersive. Instead, it reads as a beautifully designed window display. Not oriented for viewing in the round, its elements are pushed to the walls and face out. It’s completely visible from outside the large window and glass door that look in on the gallery. The best vantage is the foyer.

Across the black end wall, eight black abstracted inflatables bend, flutter and furl as air is pumped through their headless bodies by electric fans in their bases. The figures are set on a proscenium of loosely cut black carpets and wear bits of customized bathing suits, as if in various states of undress. Seven canvases that the artist calls “towels” are painted in acrylic with bold patterns and hung from racks on the side walls.

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Paul Chan, "Bathers at Night," 2018

installation view at the Remai Modern, Saskatoon (photo by Blaine Campbell)

Not confined to an armchair, Chan has marched with teamsters, travelled to Iraq with a peace group in defiance of American sanctions, designed a safe-map for demonstrators at the 2004 New York Republican convention, helped recruit volunteers for The Occupied Wall Street Journal, and established a special fund raised from a theatrical project in post-Katrina New Orleans to support neighbourhood reconstruction projects.

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Paul Chan, "Bathers at Night," 2018

installation view at the Remai Modern, Saskatoon (photo by Blaine Campbell)

Considering the l'art pour l'art tenor of Chan’s talk, a 2005 interview he did with Bomb Magazine is revealing. He was challenged on his retardataire contention that escape is a useful function of art. The interviewer takes exception, suggesting art that teaches people something about the world elicits engagement while escape invites disengagement. Chan is smart. He replies: “Are they really so different? Doesn’t honest learning require a leap that disengages what we know and engages us in what we don’t? And doesn’t this leap call for a kind of escape from ourselves? Isn’t escape actually a kind of radical engagement?” ■

Bathers at Night is on view at the Remai Modern in Saskatoon from May 11 to July 29, 2018.