TAKING SHOTS: THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS 17 JANUARY - 30 MARCH 2014
28 November 2013
William S. Burroughs (1914-1997) was an influential American novelist, essayist and artist, and a cult icon. Coinciding with the centenary of Burroughs’ birth, Taking shots will be the first major exhibition worldwide to focus on his large photographic oeuvre, offering new and important insights into his artistic and creative processes.
The exhibition will feature over a 100 works, mainly black and white, many rarely or never before seen. These include vintage photographs, collages and assemblages alongside related ephemera such as postcards, magazine and book covers and adverts used in Burroughs’ pieces. Also included in the space is Towers Open Fire (1963), a short experimental film by Antony Balch influenced by Burroughs’ theories of the image. The title, Taking Shots, refers to photography but also to Burroughs’ well-known heroin addiction and his obsession with firearms.
The photographs exhibited were mainly taken between the early 1950s and 70s in locations including London, Paris, New York and Tangier. Burroughs’ images can be loosely organised into categories including self-portraits, street scenes, intimate domestic interiors, assemblages, construction sites, and portraits of fellow writers and artists, like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Brion Gysin, and friends and lovers.
His photographs have hitherto mainly been used to illustrate critical approaches to his work. Taking Shots repositions them as integral to an understanding of the historical and formal characteristics and concerns of Burroughs’ wider oeuvre. Burroughs used photography partly as a research tool, but also as a medium of aesthetic experimentation. Processed cheaply and treated as disposable items, many of his photographs bear markings and scratches, and most are not titled or dated. The fragmented nature of his photographic oeuvre resists a thematic or chronological layout and is reflective of his nomadic lifestyle and state of mind.
Burroughs was fascinated by, what he believed to be, photography’s ability to disrupt the space-time continuum and to expand the viewer’s perception of the physical world. Using the cut-up technique – visuals cut from different works arranged and shuffled to conceive new connections and meanings between images – Burroughs created complex collages. For him these pieces functioned as a form of time travel, ones in which the camera was used to literally cut pieces from the continuum to then be repositioned and disseminated.
In a 1976 interview with J. E. Rivers, Burroughs discussed his use of photographs, noting: [...] I pay a lot of attention to photographs because of characters. I’ll say, ‘Well, that picture looks something like one of my characters’, and I’ll build up a composite picture of what a character looks like. The exhibition will examine these links and photography’s role in Burroughs’ wider aesthetic practices.
Taking Shots is curated by Patricia Allmer, Chancellor’s Fellow in Art History at the University of Edinburgh, and John Sears, independent literary critic. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, Taking Shots: The Photography of William S. Burroughs, co-published by The Photographers’ Gallery and Prestel.
Contd. Notes for Editors Page 2 of 2 William S. Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II was born on 5 February 1914 in St. Louis Missouri, USA. Burroughs was a muse and mentor to, and collaborator with, the Beats, and associated with key figures of the 60s exile culture of Tangiers, such as Brion Gysin, and Paul and Jane Bowles. He was an icon of transgression for, and worked with, a wide range of 70s and 80s counter-cultural artists, including David Bowie, Patti Smith, Madonna, Laurie Anderson, John Giorno, Sonic Youth, Bill Laswell, Genesis P. Orridge, and Kurt Cobain. His literary works and innovative practices have influenced subsequent generations of writers including Kathy Acker, Will Self, Irvine Welsh, J G Ballard, and China Miéville. He also associated with L Ron Hubbard, Timothy Leary, and other key figures of alternative culture and the avant-garde. His works, from Junky and Queer onwards, occupy unique positions in 20th century literature, and Naked Lunch, his most famous novel, was the basis for David Cronenberg’s 1991 movie. Burroughs also appeared in several cameos in films like Drugstore Cowboy (1989) and Decoder (1984). He died in Lawrence, Kansas, on 2 August 1997.
Taking Shots: The Photography of William S. Burroughs Publication Taking Shots reproduces many previously unseen photographs including portraits and self- portraits, location shots from his travels in Europe, the Americas, and North Africa, and Burroughs’ individual and collaborative experiments with photomontage, assemblage, and collage. Essays by internationally acclaimed scholars of photography and of Burroughs’ work offer a variety of critical perspectives on his photographic oeuvre, examining its sources, methodologies, biographical contexts, influences, and purposes. Co-published by The Photographers’ Gallery and Prestel, the book is due out 17 January 2013 priced at £29.99. www.prestel.com
Dr Patricia Allmer Dr Patricia Allmer is Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. She has published and presented widely on Surrealist art and photography, and curated Angels of Anarchy: Women Artists and Surrealism at Manchester Art Gallery in 2009-10. Her major publications include Rene Magritte: Beyond Painting (2008), and the co-edited “‘Wonderful Things’: Surrealism and Egypt’ special issue of Dada/Surrealism (2013). She is currently completing a monograph on the American photographer Lee Miller.
Dr John Sears Dr John Sears taught English and American literature in Manchester. He has written widely on contemporary fiction and poetry and Gothic literature. Now an independent scholar, he is currently co-editing a collection of essays on American Gothic for Edinburgh University Press. His major publications include Stephen King’s Gothic (2011, nominated for the Allan Lloyd Smith Prize for Gothic Criticism), and Reading George Szirtes (2008).
Related talks and events Coinciding with the exhibition is a series of talks and events including lectures featuring Iain Sinclair, Elza Adamowicz, Andrew Wilson and Barry Miles; a one day conference, Beyond the Cut- Up: William S Burroughs and the Image; attended by speakers Professor Oliver Harris (Keele University) and Professor Allen Fisher (Manchester Metropolitan University); screenings of select Burroughs films, a walking reading group and a curators tour to illuminate the exhibition. For additional information and to book tickets visit www.thephotographersgallery.org.uk
Taking Shots: The Photography of William S. Burroughs was made possible with assistance from the University of Edinburgh
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