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Wht is? by Paul Chan

Badlands is pleased to premiere Wht is? 10 books made by Paul Chan using loose sheets from hardcover books overprinted with text from the likes of Kant and Erica Jong and images ranging from Don Rickles, erotic dancers, and other trending topics. Each book is uniquely unreadable but a pleasure nevertheless.

Each book exists as an edition of one with two artist proofs, a free downloadable pdf, and as an e-book available on Apple iBooks and Amazon Kindle.

Wht is a Berlusconi?

7" X 8.5" X .25", 80 pages
Unique handmade book and e-book
Edition of 1 with 2 Artist Proofs
ISBN: 978-1-936440-22-1

Silvio Berlusconi is an Italian politician, the prime minister of Italy, as well as an entrepreneur. This unique handmade book and graphic e-book documents the inner life of this multifaceted man. The layering of visual and textual information creates a singular reading experience that evokes what it must be like inside the mind of such a complicated and curious man. The text of Wht is a Berlusconi? was "written" by a font designed by Chan that rewrites words into short provocative phrases, which makes reading this book that much more complicated and pleasurable.

Wht was a Cézanne?

7" X 8.5" X .25", 40 pages
Unique handmade book and e-book
Edition of 1 with 2 Artist Proofs
ISBN: 978-1-936440-28-3

Paul Cézanne was a French artist who painted landscapes, bowls of fruit, and stoves, and whose work laid the foundations for painting in particular and visual arts in general in the 20th century. Cézanne bridged Impressionism with Cubism and other styles that sought to manifest the subjective quality of perception and time embodied in objective experiences of seeing reality as such. Wht was Cézanne? uses the spirit of Cézanne as a departure point to express, through layered texts and images, what concrete experiences of seeing reality today look and feel like. There is not a single image of Cézanne's work, nor images of Cézanne himself in this book, as Cézanne would have preferred.

Wht is some debt?

7" X 8.5" X .25", 80 pages
Unique handmade book and e-book
Edition of 1 with 2 Artist Proofs
ISBN: 978-1-936440-24-5

I have debt, who doesn't? Why is it that so many people have debt? And I don't mean student loans or mortgages. I mean the kind of debt that is impossible to pay back, because these debts do not deal in currency: they deal in the elusive transactions that bind people to things, and things to a network of tendencies that strings together to form a semblance of a common good. Can these debts be forgiven? And what would it mean to forgive a debt that cannot be calculated? Through a layering of texts and images, Wht is some debt? tries—rather unsuccessfully but with gusto—to express the inexpressible nature of debt as the fundamental lack that binds the living to time and to each other.

Wht is a Kardashian?

7" X 8.5" X .25", 40 pages
Unique handmade book and e-book
Edition of 1 with 2 Artist Proofs
ISBN: 978-1-936440-21-4

"I don't see the point of this book. It really confused me and it had nothing to do with the kardashians" --Jenna<3 Maria97

Wht is a Kardashian? uses a special technique of overprinting images and texts onto existing sheets of book paper to create a singular reading experience that captures the chaos and flavor of the famous Kardashian family. A cacophony of images from ancient Rome flow alongside text "written" by a font designed by Chan that rewrites words into short provocative phrases evoke a cascade of Kardashian-like feelings and thoughts that would otherwise lay dormant in one's inner being.

Wht is Nature?

7" X 8.5" X .25", 80 pages
Unique handmade book and e-book
Edition of 1 with 2 Artist Proofs
ISBN: 978-1-936440-23-8

When we reflect on nature, or the history of humankind, or our own intellectual activity, the first picture presented to us is of an endless maze of relations and interactions, in which nothing remains the same. Everything moves, changes, comes into being and passes out of existence. Wht is nature? uses a special technique of overprinting images and texts onto existing sheets of book paper to create a singular reading experience that captures the perpetual unfolding of nature as both a thing and a property within our reality, which is always already a conceptualized reality.

Wht is Wu Tang?

7" X 8.5" X .25", 40 pages
Unique handmade book and e-book
Edition of 1 with 2 Artist Proofs
ISBN: 978-1-936440-27-6

Wu Tang is a small mountain range in the northwestern part of Hubei Province of People's Republic of China, just to the south of the city of Shiyan. From these mountains came The Wu Tang Clan, a group of rappers who are physically from Staten Island, New York, but spiritually find there home elsewhere. Wht is Wu Tang? is an unique handmade book and graphic e-book that allegorically grapples with the history of the Clan and their contribution to hip hop through the unlikely personality of Republican presidential candidate and former Texas governor Rick Perry. What is the connection? Wht is Wu Tang?

Wht is a n occupation?

7" X 8.5" X .25", 80 pages
Unique handmade book and e-book
Edition of 1 with 2 Artist Proofs
ISBN: 978-1-936440-25-2

Is an occupation a job or a calling? If it is a job, why does it feel like petrified unrest? If it is a calling, why does it take so long to achieve?

Wht is lust a?

7" X 8.5" X .25", 40 pages
Unique handmade book and e-book
Edition of 1 with 2 Artist Proofs
ISBN: 978-1-936440-26-9

Lust fills the mind with maddening undeadness and shakes one to the bone with want and longing. The muscle is the mind captured by this foreign agent that comes when it comes and leaves just as swiftly. Is this why Christianity considers it a sin: that lust is without ceremonial dignity? Or is it merely that lust draws us into unveiling ourselves as beings following, without knowing, another law. But didn't Saint Paul write that law is sin? And that without law sin lies dead? Wht is lust a? expresses these questions in layered images and texts that aren't in themselves hot or bothered in any way.

Wht is Lawlessness?

7" X 8.5" X .25", 40 pages
Unique handmade book and e-book
Edition of 1 with 2 Artist Proofs
ISBN: 978-1-936440-29-0

Who follows the law? Who or what confers authority to law? Who or what confers authority to the authority who confers authority to law? Is authority what makes law feel unlawful? Is law followed or found? What is the nature of law? What is the relationship between human law and the law of nature? Is art bound by law? If so, which one? If not, why not? If one does not know the law, is one still bound by it?

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Wht is a Book?

7" X 8.5" X .25", 80 pages
Unique handmade book and e-book
Edition of 1 with 2 Artist Proofs
ISBN: 978-1-936440-30-6

What is reading? How does reading turn into knowing? How does knowing become doing? Does it matter if knowing only knows? What is a book? Is reading a book different from reading a menu, or an affidavit, or a painting? Why are books associated with bodies? When books are burned, why is it natural to assume that people are next? Does it have to do with Eros? How do you burn an e-book?