ethan chan

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all work:

2024  from rags to riches...
            seconds
            get yourself a lawyer...
            hungry man...
            anthem            
            johanna’s not here
            (thomas series)
            pure evil

2023  meanwhile...
            white light/white heat
            liquid ecstasy...
            for wile e.
            leashed steam...
            family dinner
            love letters
            wild, west
            selections from the...

2022  china, revisited
            steer/madonna
            hail to the king
            tea for masochists

2021   fighting the loneliness
            american pie
            not your country
    
2020  the saint, the villain...
            stolen bike
            low velocity             
            just like a woman

2019   she was trying...
            why don’t you just...
            fat man & little boy
            american reformation
            made in china
            19 transactions
            sign language

19 Transactions, 2019 RELIC
THE LAST TRADED ITEM
(THE REMAINS OF A PACK OF SEAWEED)

PERFORMANCE
JANUARY 30TH - FEBRUARY 15TH, 2019

Starting with a toy ball, I attempted to trade the object with a random person for a different item with only one constraint: that the item they gave me had to be worth the same aesthetic value to them. I continued to trade whatever object I received with a different person, using the same prompt, and documented each item I received. I traded items with as many people who were willing for 15 days, ending on the 19th item I received. The performance was a study on the differences & variation between people’s aesthetic tastes.

The object took the forms of: a toy ball, a poodle mug, a Care Bears figure, a photograph of a plane, a camera lens, a pot tray, a newspaper dating back to April 1945, a Just for Laughs pill plush, a 3D-printed shotgun barrel, a pink boombox candle, 2 paint swatches, 2 scale model trees, protein powder, graffiti stencils, a cardboard house, a yellow paper plane, a drawing of a cicada, plaster noses & a packet of seaweed from Trader Joe’s, which I ate (ending the cycle).