Feature

Artists on the Verge of a Breakthrough

Still from My Birds...Trash...The Future, by Paul Chan, courtesy of Greene Naftali Gallery

(Photo: Frank Schwere)

Paul Chan
Digital Artist
Paul Chan doesn’t want you to see his face—and not just because he’s camera shy. As a member of Voices in the Wilderness, an activist group under federal indictment for violating sanctions against Iraq, and the co-creator of a map called “The People’s Guide to the Republican National Convention,” he’s trying to keep a low profile. His art is another story, in the spotlight this past year at the Carnegie International and in a first solo show at Greene Naftali (those who missed his haunting digital animation My birds . . . trash . . . the future will be able to see it at “Greater New York”). The Carnegie piece, Happiness . . . , was acquired by MoMA; supercollectors Dakis Joannou and the Rubells own his art. “For the work to survive, I have to disappear,” says the artist. To which we say, good luck.

She Can’t Be Bought
You want a Mehretu? A Hirst? A Koons? Fat chance. A much-watched lawsuit is exposing the painful truth of this overheated market: It takes more than money to buy a hot piece of art.

Where the Scenes Are
Greater New York’s new art geography.