That Chan can keep one foot in activism at this point seems a feat, given his commercial success as an artist. I could not help but think of this success as I took in his show at Greene Naftali gallery, Sade For Sade’s Sake, which features a nearly six hour wide-screen video taking its inspiration from the Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom, Sade for Sade’s Sake (2009), large-scale drawings using "fonts" developed by Chan, and a host of erotic/pornographic drawings after Matisse and other modern and contemporary artists.

Chan’s video is clearly a return to two of his early animation videos. The first animation video, Happiness (Finally) After 35,000 Years of Civilization (1999-2003), featuring animated images after the drawings of Henry Darger connects to Sade for Sade’s Sake not only by its animation style, but also by its themes: war and pornography. In Happiness (Finally) After 35,000 Years of Civilization, Chan links pornography and war together through Darger's epic drawings of naked, androgynous children battling with a belligerent adult population. Darger's world is simultaneously a utopia (a non-existent place one might wish to live in) and a distopia (a place fallen from such wishes) in that the children represent a paradise encroached upon by adult miseries (war, sexual discrimination, destruction of a natural landscape).

The animation style of Sade for Sade’s Sake resembles Chan’s earlier video work, The 7 Lights (2005-2008), a work deriving from 9/11 imagery, but playing on ancient themes from world religion (apocalypse, creation, mourning after natural and social disaster, etc.).  Seeing Sade for Sade’s Sake one recalls the freefall silhouettes of The 7 Lights. Likewise, squares representing objects, picture frames, and windows are key to both works––windows most of all.