Product Description
William S. Burroughs’s place in and influence on late 20th-century American literature is little questioned, and today he occupies the position of cultural icon, lending his voice for use on pop albums, composing the book to a recent opera, and appearing in a Nike commercial. These wide-ranging offerings are not mere celebrity dabbling but the outgrowth of a sincere and longtime occupation with expression as much as with simply writing. He has been making visual art in a wide array of media, in collaboration and on his own, for decades. His artistic work most often treats themes that will be familiar to students of his writing, and as such they are illuminating even when the individual pieces do not rise to the same artistic heights. Lavishly illustrated and exceptionally well designed, this catalog to a Los Angeles County Museum of Art show presents the full span of Burrough’s output. A flowing, lucid text by the museum’s curator of photography ties the work to Burroughs’s life and literary career.
