5 documents
# 30
A Lawless Proposition
Paul Chan
There is a Daoist saying that goes, “Whatever can be taught is not worth learning.” It is a sobering thought, perhaps even a little cruel, as any insight that rings true feels. I don’t take it to mean that one should stop listening to others. Philosophically, Daoists are realists: they want to see things as they are in the world. And the reality is that, just because you stop listening, doesn’t mean people will stop talking—to you, at you, about what to do, how to do it, when to do it, who…
e-flux Journal
Posted: December 1, 2011
Category
Education, Labor & Work, Contemporary Art
Subjects
Law & Justice
# 22
Idiot Wind: An Introduction
Paul Chan
and Sven Lütticken
When Paul Chan and Sven Lütticken proposed to gather a series of “reports” on the (mostly) recent rise of right-wing, populist movements for e-flux journal , it was immediately apparent that the urgency and complexity of the topic required its own special issue. As protests erupt throughout Europe in opposition to austerity measures being pushed through by right-wing governments and EU fiscal bodies, we are also now witnessing a phenomenon spreading throughout the Northern Hemisphere in…
e-flux Journal
Posted: January 1, 2011
Category
Fascism, Populism
Subjects
Authoritarianism, Racism, Islam, Editorial
# 22
Progress as Regression
Paul Chan
Despite ideological differences, the various factions that make up the political right in America—from the grassroots to the astroturfed to the corporate—have found common ground after Obama’s 2008 victory. 1 This ground is the past: an arid patch of mythological land that has become home to a growing organizing effort driven by anti-tax sentiments, elements of nationalism, and a vicious streak against a laundry list of undesirables. 2 This movement only knows one way forward: back….
e-flux Journal
Posted: January 1, 2011
Category
Economy
Subjects
Money & Finance, Libertarianism, Authoritarianism, USA, State & Government
# 16
The Unthinkable Community
Paul Chan
In Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot , two men wait by the side of a country road for a man who never comes. If done right, that is to say, if done with humor, fortitude, and a whiff of desperation, the play is as contemporary, funny, precise, courageous, and unknowable as I imagine it was back in 1952, when the play premiered in Paris.
When I worked with others to stage Godot in New Orleans in 2007, we took many liberties to make it work at that place, for that moment in time. We…
e-flux Journal
Posted: May 1, 2010
Category
Theater, Technology, Contemporary Art
Subjects
Social Media, The Commons
# 10
What Art Is and Where it Belongs
Paul Chan
The first piece of art I ever bought was a small painting of a dead DJ. Walking down the street in New York one day, I came across a man selling small- and medium-sized portraits of slain hip-hop artists, casually displayed on the sidewalk. They were painted in bright, simple colors. The one that caught my eye was Tribute to Jam-Master Jay , which I assumed to be the title because it was written in thick gold paint on the lower left corner of the painting. Months before, Jay, the DJ for the…
e-flux Journal
Posted: November 1, 2009
Category
Contemporary Art, Economy, Philosophy
Subjects
Art Market, Decoration & Ornamentation