Port of Entry - William S.Burroughs and the Arts (Paperback)

Beat iconoclast turned cultural icon, William S. Burroughs has been practising a postmodern voodoo alchemy, via his cut-up and fold-in collage techniques, that accurately reflect our fragmented, postmodern society and experience. His novels, once banned and condemned, have over the years earned him membership in the American Academy and Institute for Arts and Letters and the title Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France. Burroughs was the subject of an exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1996 for which "Ports of Entry" is the catalogue. Sobieszek demonstrates how Burrough's creative practive extends to and permeates most of the arts, how his work has paralleled and in some cases anticipated significant developments in painting, assemblage, music, sculpture, video and film. He discusses and offers illustrations of Burrough's extensive body of visual art, including his collages, photomontages, sculptural assemblages, shotgunned paintings and text-work images. In addition, the text looks at the work of artists, including Brion Gysin, Keith Haring, Philip Taaffe and Robert Rauschenberg, with whom Burroughs has collaborated or has an affinity.