Paul Chan The Seven Lights
The 7 LightsDrawingsTextAudio
New Museum
Since 2005, Chan has produced a series of texts that responds to and calls forth what he calls “the negative space of the Lights”. Enigmatic and playful, the texts evoke the images, events, and ideas that made the works possible by “being present in their absence.” Below is a selection of the texts.

Texts

2005-2008

 

1.

Behold, I show you a mystery.

In a moment night

is noon.

 

The light is a bone.

 

We shall not all sleep,

but we shall all be changed.

 

 

2.

The joke is,

the thing isn't.

Not now, maybe later.

 

Not funny ha ha.

How about this: This time

dear deer, the tree

knows and is waiting

in the coven.

 

 

3.

The floor forsees

the mutual loss of

men and God.

 

Humbled by the ascension

of surface, they become

free again,

as ghosts.

 

 

4.

Remember the

Bourgeoisie? Their

acreage comes closest

to the mobile phone.

 

The model is new

and the ring renews

the sting of triumph.

Like that dog.

 

 

5.

There are two

times.Chronos is what

we measure the day by.

 

Kairos is what

comes after.

 

 

6.

Time passes,

once in silence now

in stereo.

 

The indirect light

welcomes this change but

is unconvinced of

the progress.

 

 

7.

Progress is regression.

Windows should be

broken to serve

the beginning.

 

 

8.

No justice.

No fees.

 

No justice.

No keys.

 

The train that served

as the metaphor for

relativity, has left.

 

 

9.

You think
things will end.
And that will be the opening.


I want you to know
things don't think to end.
And that is the promise

and the threat.

 

 

10.

You are dead to

the law.

 

The shadow knows.

 

 

11.

How many times

can you return on investment?

 

Silly. The window frames to

and fro and frames you.

 

There are no more secrets.

And hence,Value.

 

 

12.

OMG cannibals run

the economy!

 

No amount of Kashmir

will do the trick.

 

But I’m down for whatever.

Now that Bush is gone.

 

 

13.

The painter of Light,

and the painter of

Modern Life

are in a bar.

 

They drink to value,

but remain subjectless.

 

 

14.

There is no other interior

than the world.

 

A man wrote.

 

A window no longer

framing and light

no longer shining

is testament enough.

No?

 

 

15.

Relief comes

when the end

is near.

 

Magic comes after.

It is called fear.

 

 

16.

The shadow

is a depthless

transition from suture

to the Real.

 

The surface the birds

touch is neither inside

nor outside.

 

 

17.

Take that

stain out. And

you will find yourself

not of this time.

 

But is in that time. The one

the light strikes,

in Serbian or Spanish or

that shit they play

in town.

 

 

18.

Meteorlogical thought

eulogizes time by a

succession of events.

 

The ideal storm is really

the magic of naming.

 

And in naming, releasing.

 

 

19.

The wetness misunderstood

as darkness

moves across

the field in

4/4 time.

 

History does not repeat,

but rhymes.

 

 

20.

The shape that

color renounces

happens to look a lot

like Glenn Gould.

 

Via negativa is the way

to reach it, provided it

justify in costs, overruns,

that kind of thing.

 

 

21.

There is a story

about a secret.

 

But who the hell

knows it?

 

 

22.

The pragmatists have

it wrong. What is

left is not

the ends of use.

 

They hang in the air

like dancers, soaking the

speed back into

our idea of freedom.

 

 

23.

It is really streaming

live.

 

Moment by moment

by light in lieu

of form.

 

Left by that bird and

that shadow, together and

for everyone.

 

 

24.

The present

no longer represents

the real.

 

Exlxia lo revek

koviv es cheaq ip

dic dic po.

 

 

25.

Here’s our,

ghetto story.

 

The gas holds

the hum that

powers a

return to

the exit.

 

It feels like nothing.

But that is the point

says Foucault, making

noise.

 

 

26.

Miguel wants

me to rise up

and sing

 

I would, but

the moral force

outside my window

 

is gunning, well into

the next century,

for my pants.

 

 

27.

Black light solitude

is a perverse

freedom

 

 

28.

This morning’s

string theory

goes as follows:

 

Light is the inverse

of a slackening

made real.

 

Apply it with malice

on aching joints

and floors.

 

 

29.

A life in crime

must cross that line

before the point

left by Xeno.

 

 

30.

The time to thug

always comes

too soon.

 

You trap all day and

play all night.

The clowns meet

down the block.

 

As a precaution.

 

 

31.

Echo reconciles. Ask

the shadow of the tree.

 

Or the broken window

about the slurry time

that bonds itself-in

-the-thing.