philosopher and writer Amia Srinivasan meeting with the artist Paul Chan for the latest episode of “Artists on Writers | Writers on artists. Together they contemplate fate, the distortion of reality caused by screens, their first experiences with philosophy and the construction of meaning through their respective disciplines. The Chan exhibition “Respirators” is currently on view at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis through July 16. Amia’s latest book, The Right to Sex: Feminism in the 21st Centuryis available now with Bloomsbury in the UK and Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the US.
Amia Srinivasan is Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at All Souls College, Oxford. Previously, she was Associate Professor of Philosophy at St John’s College, Oxford, and before that Lecturer in Philosophy at University College London. She obtained a BPhil and a DPhil in Philosophy at Oxford, and before that a BA at Yale. Srinivasan works on topics of political philosophy, epistemology, history and theory of feminism, and metaphilosophy. His first book, The Right to Sex: Feminism in the 21st Centurywas released in 2021. It was a moment Sunday time bestseller, winner of Blackwell’s Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Orwell Prize. Srinivasan is currently completing a second book, on the practice of critical genealogy, titled The contingent world: genealogy, epistemology, politics.
Paul Chan lives and works in New York. Chan was recently named a 2022 MacArthur Foundation Fellow. “Breathers,” a major solo exhibition of his recent practice, is currently on view at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, through July 16, 2023, and will travel to the Institute for Contemporary Art by VCU, Richmond (2023), and the Musée d’art contemporain Saint-Louis (2024). His recent solo exhibitions include Greene Naftali, New York (2020, 2019, 2017); Remai Modern, Saskatoon, Canada (2018); the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia (2017); Deste Foundation project space, slaughterhouse, Hydra (2015); and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2015), among others. Winner of the Hugo Boss Award in 2014, Chan co-curated the exhibition “Artistic License: Six Takes on the Guggenheim Collection” (2019) and in 2007 collaborated with Creative Time and The Classical Theater of Harlem to stage a presentation in situ of Waiting for Godot in New Orleans. His work is part of the collections of museums and institutions around the world.
