How Jes Fan stages the phenomenology of the body in constant transformation in 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 permeability of the boundaries between body and entity. In examining relationships and interdependent systems, Fan challenges viewers to rethink the porous membranes that separate us from the world. These exciting themes take center stage in Van’s latest exhibition at 55 Walker, co-curated by artist representatives Andrew Kreps, kaufmann repetto and Bortolami. Earlier this month, The Observer sat down with Fan to discuss his experiments using materials to test and prove the concept of similarities between fluids and species.
Titled Sites of Injury: Between Chapters, the exhibition boldly explores the liminal space between flesh and architectural membranes, examining the web of connections in biological and social systems. Fan’s thoughtful stage installations and multimedia interventions create material metaphors for the filters, surfaces and membranes that shape our interactions with the world. These malleable structures explore identity, biology, and ecology, inviting viewers to grapple with shifts in the way we relate to other living things and the environments we inhabit.
Through this exhibition, Fan creates a phenomenology of the body that encompasses dizzyingly complex and hybrid perspectives. His work delves into how tangible entities are experienced, perceived and understood, looking at the body as both subject and object of experience. He transcends cultural, racial, and even species identifications to present the body as an integral part of a fluid ecosystem—a participant in an endless cycle of mutual exchanges that sustains survival while constantly forcing new transformations and adaptations .
As we enter the space, we are greeted by a striking installation: a pool of boiling soy milk that serves as a projection surface for a video of a homemade endoscopic examination of internal organs. As milk curdles into a skin-like membrane, this playful piece provides a haunting sensory experience, turning the body inside out and imagining a fluid flesh that reveals it to be the source of countless other microscopic The ever-changing places in which living things live. The dry soy milk film is a subtle barrier that simultaneously triggers penetration and creates protective resistance, setting a tense and ambiguous tone for what lies ahead. The gallery becomes a laboratory of excavation and experimentation, where the ability of materials to embody, repel, or absorb other entities is tested, allowing for a metaphorical exploration of the physical and psychological processes that shape human interaction with the world.
In the first room, Fan presents a series of sculptural works inspired by Hong Kong’s native agarwood trees. The artist is fascinated by how these trees respond to stress and trauma – producing an aromatic resin that hardens around the wound as it heals. The resin creates complex surface textures, transforming the scars of the trees into striking patterns that embody damage and resilience. Fan reflects on this process in his work, which combines 3D printing of his own muscle tissue with CT scans to create poignant parallels between plant and human responses to wounds. These abstract patterns reflect the body’s ability to heal, building new structures out of scars and trauma. The series expands on themes first explored by Fan at the Whitney Biennial, delving into the permeability of the body and the instability of identity. In his vision, the site of injury becomes a dynamic site for testing resilience—a place where trauma is absorbed, transformed, and ultimately marked as part of a continuous cycle of healing.
In the same room, a cast of Fan’s partner’s torso appears on the wall, forming an irregularly shaped cavity whose surface becomes something plastic, malleable and fluid – ready to adapt and accommodate external presence. “I placed it on the slide at the entrance so that visitors would have the impression of entering that membrane and then encountering the traces of their passage,” Fan told the Observer. Here , the artist once again deeply explores the phenomenology of the body – the body not only exists in space, but also dynamically inhabits it, acquires meaning, and evolves through the interaction of its context. The cavity houses honeycomb-like blown glass sculptures that nestle within like parasitic beings or osmotic organs, incorporating the installation’s exploration of permeability and metamorphosis.
Fan’s work rejects simple metaphors and instead operates in a space of tactility and emotional resonance. “It’s not about an object, it’s about liking a feeling state,” Fan said. “They evoke a certain subtle feeling, a feeling of change or transformation on the cusp of change and transformation.” This sense of fluidity extends to the site-specific wall installations, which Fan describes as “architecturally bringing the surface to life. regarded as penetrable”.
The first room seems filled with an almost uneasy desire to dissolve the boundaries between the outer body and its inner space. Fan’s explorations go beyond humans, delving into relationships within species and the physical characteristics shared between humans and other organisms. “I really see sculpture as a way of thinking through materials,” Fan explains, describing his practice as an investigation of the way everything is on the verge of potential transformation.
As we move into the next room, the narrative changes, taking on a more disturbing tone. The rusty metal structure suspends a sticky veil of an unidentified substance that eerily resembles melted or peeling human skin. These veils have yellowed, as if in the process of rotting or taking root, evoking unsettling connections to the racialization of Asian skin and the heavy weight of historical discrimination. The geometry of the supporting structure—a rigid scaffolding unable to accommodate these fluid, changing forms—symbolizes the limits of language. Here, Fan deftly critiques how systems of symbols and definitions attempt to impose order on a reality that refuses to conform, one that is constantly evolving and transforming. Overall, the artist’s work in this room embraces the formless, relinquishing the illusion of control in favor of chaotic fluidity. It is a surrender to the generative possibilities of instability and change, a blatant rejection of the idea that anything—body, identity, or organism—can be neatly categorized.
Jes Fan’s work in the second room continues his methodology of “queer” materials and their properties and is the culmination of relentless experimentation with soy milk and its derivatives. The “skin” covered by the rusty metal structure is once again made from condensed soy milk, dried and processed by the artist to achieve a solid skin-like texture. These suspended forms echo the entrance piece, evoking acts of escape and adaptation – an endless cycle of transformation and survival in response to new circumstances. The metal frame is simultaneously restrictive and supportive, creating a distinct tension between fragility and resilience. They nurture these superficial beings, giving them a physical and metaphorical place in space.
Fan scattered the capsuled soybeans on the floor, artificially cutting off their natural biological cycle. These isolated forms display impermeability and durability, but their elasticity is the result of vigorous manipulation. As Fan explains, soybeans have undergone thousands of transformations, evolving to withstand threats, but this resilience comes at a cost. Intensive human intervention has accelerated their adaptation and fundamentally destroyed their original biological essence. The sealed and inert capsule prevents any liquid or natural transformation of the soybeans, leaving them in an artificial stasis. “It’s no longer just an organism;
A series of drawings that further explore the similarities between the arboreal and the human body round out the exhibition. Delicate root filaments and wood knots trace a pattern that resembles an arterial system, suggesting a network of connections that connects all living things. These drawings evoke the ongoing, interdependent exchange of vital materials—the complex dance necessary for survival.
Through this exhibition, artist Jes Fan’s experimental approach to materiality reveals profound connections between the properties and behavior of organic and artificial membranes. By revealing these similarities, he questions the systems of mediation and interrelation that have emerged—systems that often undermine the organic, permeable interdependence between entities. Extending his exploration into the relationship between the human body and other organisms, Fan broadened the scope of his artistic and philosophical inquiry. His work encourages a shift away from individual human experience toward interspecies, ecological, and ethical perspectives, inviting viewers to rethink their place within larger, interconnected ecosystems.
Jes Fan’s Sites of Wounding: Interchapter will be on view through December 21 at Andrew Kreps at 55 Walker in New York.
