The Art of William S. Burroughs: Cut-ups Cut-ins Cut-outs

About this book

The influence of William Burroughs on popular culture has been enormous: the Beatles the Stones Andy Warhol the Velvet Underground David Bowie Keith Haring David Cronenberg and Sonic Youth have all paid homage to the Beat writer in various media. While Burroughs life story and sexual/narcotic proclivities have had their own legacy the cut-up method that he developed in the 1960s with his friend Brion Gysin has proved his most generative legacy. Writers musicians and artists of all kinds have adopted this chance procedure which involves the cutting and splicing of language--or image or sound--to produce unexpected conjunctions and scramble consensus reality. The cut-up is actually closer to the facts of perception than representational painting Burroughs wrote of the method. Take a walk down a city street and put down what you have just seen on canvas . . . consciousness is a cut up. This compendium of Burroughs artwork collages cut-ups scrapbooks photographs films ephemera and paintings offers a full overview of his visual output emphasizing the importance and legacy of the cut-up method. In addition it examines the significance of his tape cut-up experiments of the 60s and 70s as well as his practice of collaboration across media. Containing much previously unseen material Cut-ups Cut-ins Cut-outs: The Art of William Burroughs is a definitive publication on a writer and artist whose influence only increases with time. William Seward Burroughs (19141997) was born in St. Louis Missouri. He studied at Harvard University where he graduated in 1936 and briefly attended medical school in Vienna. In the 1940s he met Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg thus helping to found the Beat movement of which his novel Naked Lunch is a key text.