In 1997, I bought a van to travel around and investigate the streets of New York City, where I had just arrived. To chronicle my new life in an unfamiliar surrounding, I used whatever documents that came my way, be them maps or pages from my own diary, invoices or cost estimates.

The resulting work, Id – by Van, is at once a personal statement (my "ID," in other words) and a record of an unconscious mind running wild (the Freudian "id"). This is the reason for the initial cap in "Id." The word in the title is meant to be a compromise between the omnipotent ID and the invisible id: the one defining us socially, the other, psychologically.

More mystifying is Chang Lishan's installation of hundreds of framed pieces of paper bearing unintelligible, vaguely calligraphic markings. The label explains that when Mr. Chang arrived in New York in 1997, he bought a van and started a moving business. The framed pages are actually handwritten bills, cost estimates and road directions that he scribbled over to turn them into artworks.

–Ken Johnson
New York Time, April 30, 2004