Patty Chang (b. San Leandro, California, 1972)
Originally trained as a painter, Patty Chang entered the performance art scene following her move to New York in 1994. Her early works tested her physical endurance, and challenged ideas of femininity, taste, desire, and the exploitation of women. While her work is provocative, the artist often interjects humor into her performances, forcing viewers to confront social mores and commonly held views through a fresh and unsettling perspective. As with many performance artists, Chang documents her work through film and photography.
In the dual-channel, three-and-a-half-minute video In Love, 2001, Chang stands face-to-face with her parents—her father on the left screen and her mother on the right. Each channel is tightly focused on the heads of each pair. At first, it appears as though the parent and adult child are kissing. In time, it becomes evident that the video is playing in reverse, depicting the absurdist act of artist and parent simultaneously eating an onion. Each in turn takes a bite of the pungent vegetable, with tears visible in their eyes and on their cheeks as they pass it back and forth. Because the video is in reverse, the tears disappear, and the onion becomes whole.
The primal, corporeal connection between parent and child is readily apparent throughout the film. There is a palpable unease, reflecting the underlying tensions that can surface throughout the course of lifelong relationships. Each person transforms from stage to stage, inducing ever-shifting dynamics and perspectives. In the early phases a child receives nourishment and care from a parent, but with time and age the roles reverse. However functional or dysfunctional, a codependency exists between the two.
Shortly after giving birth to her son, Chang traveled through Uzbekistan, pursuing her interest in the Aral Sea crisis. For decades, Soviet-era irrigation facilities have redirected the rivers that feed the sea, depleting it of water. Prohibited from taking photographs of these sites, Chang turned the camera onto herself, in a way. In her 2017 Letdown series—the title is derived from the term for a lactating mother’s release of milk—Chang pumped her breastmilk and used teacups and plastic cups to contain it. The artist documented these cups next to half-eaten dishes, dirty plates, crumpled plastic tablecloths, and balled-up paper. Rather than life-sustaining nourishment, in these images her breastmilk becomes abject debris to be discarded, reminiscent of the devastated landscape that surrounds her.
Patty Chang, In Love, 2021. Two-channel video installation, 3 minutes, 28 seconds. Patty Chang and Micki Meng, San Francisco. © Patty Chang. Image courtesy of the Artist