Paul Chan

After 9/11, Paul Chan distinguished himself by confronting the world-historical crises of the ensuing decade through a mesmerizing poetic dialogue with predecessors ranging from Henri Matisse to Maurice Blanchot to Martha Rosler. After carrying out a series of virtuosic projects, including Waiting for Godot in New Orleans, 2007; “The 7 Lights,” 2005–2008; and Sade for Sade’s Sake, 2009, Chan retired from the art world proper, focusing instead on his eccentric Badlands Unlimited publishing house. This April, he will mount his first exhibition since this hiatus began, a period

print April 2011

Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison

For figures from John Muir to Ansel Adams and beyond, the Sierra Nevada has long been a locus classicus of the American wilderness sublime. Traditionally represented as a sacred zone of untouched nature standing outside of human history, the transcendentalist landscape imaginary of the Sierra in fact developed in tandem with a range of biopolitical technologies concerning the government of populations, territories, and resources. Ranging from the imperial survey photography of Timothy O’Sullivan to Adams’s own work for the Department of the Interior, this ambivalent history shadows “Sierra