An installation view of Jes Fan’s “Sites of Wounding: Interchapter” at Andrew Kreps. Courtesy of the artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery.

Working at the intersection of biology and identity, New York and Hong Kong-based artist Jes Fan has been questioning the penetrability of boundaries between bodies and entities. While investigating systems of relations and interdependencies, Fan challenges viewers to rethink the porous membranes separating us from the world. These heady themes take center stage in Fan’s latest show at the 55 Walker space jointly operated by Andrew Kreps (who represents the artist), kaufmann repetto and Bortolami. Earlier this month, Observer sat down with Fan to discuss his experimental use of materials to test and prove notions of fluid intercorporeality and interspecies parallels.

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Titled “Sites of Wounding: Interchapter,” the exhibition ventures boldly into the liminal spaces between corporeal and architectural membranes, examining the networks of connection that ripple through biological and societal systems. Fan’s thoughtfully staged installations and multimedia interventions create material metaphors for the filters, surfaces and membranes that mold our interaction with the world. These malleable constructs explore identity, biology and ecology, inviting viewers to grapple with the shifting ways we relate to other beings and to the environments we inhabit.

With this show, Fan has conjured a phenomenology of bodies that embraces a dazzlingly complex and hybrid multiperspective. His work delves into how corporeal entities are experienced, perceived and understood, treating the body as both a subject and an object of experience. He transcends cultural, racial and even species-based identification, presenting the body as an indispensable piece of a fluid ecosystem—a player in an endless cycle of mutual exchanges that underpin survival while constantly forcing new transformations and adaptations.

A striking installation greets us as we enter the space: a pool of boiling soy........

© Observer