At the base of the drawings' frames are shoes. The shoes are from various walks of life. There are the shoes of the middle-class business man, of business casual (a hybrid sneaker shoe), and a grungy pair of Nike Airs (Chan’s use of shoes, like his use of objects in The 7 Lights is stereotypical, if not archetypal). Where once stood actual bodies, language stands in their place, a generalized pornography of stock words and phrases: “give it to me,” “suck it,” “more, oh more”... etc.

In recent interviews Chan has said that the primary investigation of his recent work is religious inasmuch as sacral matters interlock with those of economics, politics, and cultural struggle. His pursuit of this investigation is reluctant, however necessary. In an essay that appeared last month in the quarterly journal October issue #129, “The Spirit of Recession,” Chan addresses his sense of contemporary religion through the notion of “recession.” In this essay, Chan would like to play on the secular and religious notion of recession. In economics a recession refers to a time in which economic confidence has withdrawn. Yet in religious ceremony, the recession is the moment at the end of a religious service when worshippers return to their ordinary lives, thereby interrupting their period of worship. Recession, particularly in this later sense, is a time in which we can transform our lives, since they are no longer given to the subservience and docility of religious observation (an observation which Chan equates with deregulated global Capitalism).

I am not sure what to make of Chan's turn to metaphysics, or the fact that his project has always been, at bottom, a metaphysical one even when it would seem to be serving a practical political use. I am wary of it, seeing all of the bad religions have done in the 20th century, and seeing a real need for art and poetry to exist outside religious discourse. Yet, I trust Chan's intellect––there are few artists I know who are doing more to reflect on the stakes of their work for realms beyond art world problems and concerns. How to maintain a politics while investigating a metaphysics of culture and economics?–– Chan's work burns with this question. How not to foreclose any of these realms of experience; how not to suture their separate truths—a fate that contemporary philosophy has warned us of in regards to social-political struggle (Alain Badiou, Jacques Ranciere)?  Art, for Chan, is at the center of this negotiation. His use of Sade only extends this conflict further, risking a reduction of politics to metaphysics, and art to theology. Yet, it is history that has brought us to this critical juncture in art, and this is a fact I believe Chan to be all too aware of too.

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^{_{note and apologies: the captions were out of order for a bit. Fixed now! Also the complete info for image on page 1 is the following:}}

^{_{Paul Chan
Sade for Sade's sake, Installation view, 2009
digital video projection
5 hours, 45 minutes looped
Image Courtesy Greene Naftali Gallery, New York
Photo Credit:Gil Blank}}