For the 2014 faculty exhibition, "Affinities, Dialogues, and Divergences," the Binghamton University Art Museum invited graduate students to write the text accompanying the artworks. Through the process, it was a delight to get to know, and interpret, Frank Chang. The show invited faculty artists to respond to works in the permanent collection with an artwork of their own. Chang selected a Late Period Egyptian wood statue of Osiris.
Egyptian
(Late Period, 664-323 BCE)
Wood with polychrome
Gift of a student
Binghamton University Art Museum
Photo: Chris Focht
Frank Chang
(American, born 1979)
2014
Marker, graphite, and cut paper, mounted on paper
Collection of the artist
Photo: Frank Chang
Photo: Chris Focht
According to ancient Egyptian mythology, the god and primeval king of Egypt, Osiris, underwent repeated attempts by his younger brother Set to kill him. Set even cuts the elder brother into pieces, yet Osiris was resurrected and became god of the dead and the afterlife. Artist Frank Chang channels the trickster god Set by cutting up paper, and through meticulous crafting gives the illusion of having produced one whole graphite and marker drawing. Out, Out, Brief Candle! is comprised of multiple small drawings—many depicting mummified and wrapped cadavers—that fuse into one image. The edges of each drawing, cut separately from their original sheets, are carefully arranged so that their contours appear to meet. As a result of this careful construction, the collaged image appears to drip in the form of melted and cooled wax.
The resulting candle form is not arbitrary. Chang is fascinated by the liminal space that immediately follows death according to ancient Egyptian religious beliefs and the allure that this space has held for Western imaginations in more recent centuries. The partially melted candle, composed of so many deceased graphite bodies, invokes the lace-covered tabletops around which curious Victorians might have gathered when attempting to call upon Osiris himself. Chang, as Set, gives clues while staying ahead with his tricks. Close looking is rewarded if the viewer spends time comparing the bodies and other figures of vastly differing scales. Although the image as a whole has an overall cohesion, detailed inspection reveals significant differences in line and between one seemingly surgically implanted element and the next.Chang’s visual trickery is perceptible, but only to the keen observer. Set awaits the hurried with his scissors.
- Josh T Franco
Photo: Chris Focht