Tag: Luxury

William S. Burroughs is cemented in the popular imagination as the archetypal literary outlaw, the third part of a holy trinity of Beats; father to Ginsberg’s son and Kerouac’s ghost. Novels including Junkie, Queer and Naked Lunch pioneered a new and uniquely American literary form, shamanistic and paranoid, sanctifying the outsider. But Burroughs’ experiments in form and creative process extended beyond writing into film, sound and the visual arts, and he spent much of his later years in Kansas making paintings. A selection of those works can be seen in All out of time and into space at October Gallery, London.

In advance of the opening I caught up with Kathelin Gray, founder of the Theater of all Possibilities and a close friend of Burroughs, to talk about the man, his paintings, and how the mythology surrounding the most American of artists might impede our appreciation of his work.

Burroughs is best known here as a writer, so I wonder if you could expand on the relationship between his literary and painterly practice.

Burroughs had associated with artists through the forties and fifties, the era of Abstract Expressionism and Action Painting. He was very influenced by process art, recombinant art, by art that incorporated incorporating text into paintings, and he was always concerned with the relationship between word and image. Burroughs thought in images, in symbols, and that’s visible in both his writing and his painting.

How influential was Brion Gysin on Burroughs’ work as a visual artist?

Gysin and Burroughs began to collaborate in Paris in 1959, when they were living together in the Beat Hotel. Gysin had steeped himself in the cabbalistic traditions of North Africa and his work drew heavily on ritual and magic; that influenced Burroughs, who was more scientific in his approach. Gysin introduced Burroughs to the cut up too – he realised one day, when he was cutting through newspaper with an Exacto knife, that the strips could be recombined and the word sequences re-examined.

What was so attractive about the cut up technique to Burroughs?

He saw it as a means of undermining the power structures that govern the behaviour of the populous. Burroughs was constantly trying to get at the way that things are programmed beneath the surface. The cut-up technique was one of the tools by which he did this, but not the only one.

What were the other tools, the other processes? With respect to the paintings I’m thinking of those abstract compositions creating by taking a shotgun to a can of spray paint…

Well I think Burroughs and Gysin met [auto-destructive artist] Gustav Metzger at one of his early lectures at Cambridge. Metzger was fed up with the commodification of art and was trying to get back to the act, the essence of what’s done by the artist in the moment of creation. That was another influence.

But Burroughs didn’t start painting until late in his life?

Burroughs really began painting in 1987, in Kansas, the year after Gysin died. Burroughs was devastated by Gysin’s death – he was the only man he ever truly respected as a man and an artist. You know, Burroughs only really started writing after he killed his wife Joan [in a drunken and famously ill-advised game of William Tell], and I think that taking up painting represented another way of working through trauma.

What of the way that Burroughs is perceived now?

I’m really not keen on the Burroughs stereotype of him with the needle in his arm and the three-piece suit, because that’s not what he was.

You don’t think he deliberately cultivated that iconography?

He cultivated the iconography but not the stereotype. I wouldn’t say that he resented the stereotype – it’s just that it’s counterproductive when it comes to understanding his work.

He was always keen to dissociate himself from the Beat Generation, which hasn’t stopped him being lumped in with them by posterity. How did he consider his work, and that of Gysin, to be different from that of Kerouac, Ginsberg or Gregory Corso?

He was a close friend with Ginsberg, particularly, but he wasn’t like the Beats – he wasn’t a Buddhist, he wasn’t Zen, he didn’t like jazz, he wasn’t cool. Burroughs’ work was about deconstructing the hypnotic effect on human nature of the corporate world, the military-industrial complex, and the military-educational complex. He was extremely concerned by the ecological devastation of the planet, by terrorism, by the militarisation of society, and he deeply wanted to create tools that would allow the individual to think for themselves. That drove everything that he did.

Benjamin Eastham

The latest release from the Software Studios imprint is 'Instrumental Tourist', the collaborative LP of Brooklyn-based Oneohtrix Point Never and the Polaris Award-winning Tim Hecker, whose respective experiments have routinely teased at the boundaries of electronic music and the capacity for compositions to grow from decidedly non or anti-formalist beginnings. After being long-time fans of each others solo work, 'Instrumental Tourist' sees Hecker and Lopatin come together to not only explore the capacity for their music to find a common ground in a collaborative project and to push one another in the studio setting, but also to probe at the potential for ambient and drone music to delve deeper into new, unfamiliar sonic realms.

DazedDigital: What inspired you to work on a collaborative album together?

Oneohtrix Point Never:I approached Tim about collaborating with me for a series of 12"s that C. Spencer Yeh and I wanted to release on Software - bringing together electronic music producers working in a more or less improvisatory manner in the studio. The idea was partially inspired by my interest in Teo Macero and his sessions with Miles Davis' varying groups in the late '60s and early '70s. There is a dynamic between open ended jams and the logic of tape editing that I find really stimulating. I thought that Tim and I would be great in terms of both utilizing the studio as an instrument, but I also just had a hunch that we'd compliment each other well; like in a rhythm section, or the ways directors and DPs work together. Contrasting styles and struggles can often lead to fresh work and having admired Tim's solo stuff, I thought it was worth a shot.

Tim Hecker:I was deeply into Daniel's last recordReplicawhen he suggested the project. I thought it made sense on a bunch of levels. Instead of doing a collaboration which brings together the 'inert' digital composer with a 'lively' or 'physical' instrumentalist to spray fresh life on the mouse clicking tedium, I thought some other route was better and this project made sense. Anyways, the point of a collaborative effort shouldn't be visualizing a clear path in advance. I wasn't sure how it would work out, and was interested in how it might take shape - which was part of the pleasure.

DD: Your LPs are stylized regarding around "digital garbage", and the ambiguous evocations of drone and ambient music. How do you feel your respective aesthetics married on the LP?

Oneohtrix Point Never:I think we both do a fair amount of melodic manipulation. There are some procedural things we do with garbage that lead to sounds suggesting classical forms, and upon discovering some of the specifics oh how that works respectively, we were able to work out a shared language.

Tim Hecker:From way too high of a vantage point it could be argued that we occupy similar terrain of music, but I think we both agree there's significant variance in terms of our interests and approaches in composing sound. I honestly wasn't interested in 'marrying' our aesthetics in a kind of linear additive sense, but rather evaporating the self into a project that is more than just you.

DD: Did you begin the project with a particular conceptual direction in mind as a duo?

Oneohtrix Point Never:I'm not sure how it emerged, but we pretty quickly got into this idea that we could paint an extended portrait of a sonic world that is filled with stock musical motifs and sounds in there most vulnerable states. Like the subconscious fears and desires of azither- what might that look like? There was a lot of conversation like that. But what you're hearing are very loose portrayals of that idea. It's more an anchor to stimulate, but then we really do end up just jamming off of each other in a way that isn't conceptually didactic.

Tim Hecker:We didn't cut a path in advance. It sort of took shape very quickly in a non-contrived, almost unconscious level through joking around and talking in the studio. It may not seem apparent from the music but our studio time was filled with laughs and rapid-fire banter that kind of helped to morph the approach as things continued over a couple of days.

DD: Technically, how did you approach the recording process? You're both known to process samples of acoustic instruments and analogue synths in your productions, so how did you work out enough of a variation between the two of you to feel you had technically distinct inputs into the sound of the project?

Tim Hecker:I didn't care for delineating any sort of distinct input. I enjoy dissolving myself into an ether of Daniel's solo lines. For example, mixing or adding reverb to one of Daniel's phrases for me constitutes creative input that is better than being sonically represented in an obvious way. I'm still obsessed with the effect of electronic instruments being re-amplified in real space and capturing those environments. We used a lot of room microphones that gave a greater depth to things.

DD: The album is presented as largely improvisational, with a sort of free-jazz spirit to it. How do you feel you worked towards more structured elements over a prolonged period of time with this ethos in mind?

Oneohtrix Point Never:It's less about free-jazz and more about an open, improvisatory approach and deep listening. You can easily link that to all sorts of 20th century musical practices. There's no need to compromise because there's no hardcore parameters set until we're dealing with edits or having some macro level discussion about which tunes work and which don't. There's formal aspects to both of our styles but I wouldn't say there is a formal aspect to this project. We usually agree on what sounds good, and when we don't its easy - we just ice it and move forward.

"Let's begin at the beginning: I love Miuccia Prada.

I'd bend backwards/sideways/every way for her. I feel her. I love her observation, sensitivity, modernism; she's progressive with respect, taking it all in, playing with it. With humour, intelligence. She's my goal.

When I was invited to DJ as part of the-miumiu-london I was beyond myself. The event took over the Cafe Royal's beautiful and baroque surroundings for three days – I'd previously hung in a 40s club run there.

Across three floors there was The Club Lounge and Terrace, Conversation Room, Oyster Bar, The Restaurant, Cocktail Bar and Miu Miu shop/gallery.Nourishing the senses (and the mind) across architecture, food, aesthetics, conversation and sound, I like the fact that #themiumiu was a women's club, where men had to accompany as a guest – a clever reversal of archetype.But I wouldn't consciously call myself a feminist, I'm for equal rights, which was one of the themes in the Conversation Room I visited.

There were women from all walks of life with the odd male here and there. Discussion was of women role models, with Penny Martin and Shala Monroque leading. I'd have liked some more time to get real dirty with it, into the nitty gritty of deeper issues and diversity butI got my word in expressing my respect for Pina Bausch, inspired by her expression through various media as a pioneer for the invisible. The movement drawing on feelings and observation; the beauty and grace of the old age or a child, man or woman and all in-between. The joy, pain and delicacy of life all wrapped in a very beautiful uniform.

Afterwards, a friend and I took fancy to some simple pleasures, eating seafood in the surroundings of golden wall swirls and candlelight, and diving into champagne. The Miu Miu collection in the shop I knew off by heart, and I knew it'd speak to me.

Cleansed by the freshness of the sea fruit and taste of fine wine, I was ready to play. No rules, just musical passion for 3 hours. Stephen Jones came up to me saying 'I Only Have Eyes For You' was his favourite song ever. I think if Miuccia was there, she'd have had a dance.

I had a great evening and connected with my girlfriend. The eyes said it all: I want to go there again. But... all things must pass."

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“I try to make work that nobody can use if they are not willing to accept a change in whatever logic structure they are stuck in,” explains Lawrence Weiner. It is the day before the opening of his solo exhibition BE THAT AS IT MAY at the Lisson Gallery, and accompanied with a glass of whisky, he begins to unravel a five decade career in which he has deconstructed artistic practices and expanded the accepted notions of the art object. As the title of his new show suggests, Weiner proposes “are we going to accept this as art?” Something that has continued to fuel his fascination with materialism and breaking down the structure of things. THIS AS THAT (BE THAT AS IT MAY) is printed on the window of the gallery, projected inwards and outwards, allowing it to be viewed simultaneously without occupying the room itself. It becomes a material fact, less to do with the way the text is presented and more to do with its relation to space. Here, Lawrence Weiner discusses growing up in the Bronx, pretty girls at MoMa and his dedication to changing attitudes.

When did your fascination with language begin?

Im not even that fascinated by language. Language became the means to break the hierarchal standard. I got good at what I was doing. Language became a necessity because painting had reached a certain point. It just wasn't allowing me to go as deep into the relationship of what interested me - human beings and objects. Remember, at that time, it was not a radical choice. There were thirty or forty artists who began to see language as a means of making art. It wasn't radical. It wasn't even a departure. Nobody was paying attention to you apart from your little art world. It didn't much matter. You didn't have to fit in. The whole point of the work is that it puts a material fact out. It has no metaphor. I don't know how someone will react. It doesn't carry a hidden meaning. You don't miss the point, the point is there. Each individual person comes to art and looks at it. If it doesn't have a metaphor, they will take their needs and their desires and build a metaphor from what they are looking at. That is why Mondrian was so powerful.

You began your career with explosion events...

That was something else. It was 1960 and I was in California. I did a piece of work where I made a mistake, not that we got caught. We didn't even get prosecuted because there was a whole lot of people and I guess the judge at Mill Valley realised that if he held anybody, he would be stuck with all these people. I think we were sort of scary, but not frightening like Hells Angels. I thought that each individual explosion was a sculpture. I had to function and deal with it that way. Four years down the line I had my own crisis. I decided that I didn't want to participate in this world anymore. Looking back, it was a very post-adolescent mentality of not wanting to do something. From then onwards, it wasn't about each individual explosion. Each hole meant something to somebody and the idea became obvious, that each hole would always mean something to somebody. That was the point in making art, that it meant something to somebody. I guess I didn't stop producing this kind of work. Instead, I stopped thinking about the specific individual object. I began to realise that the drama of each individual work was the object. I guess it took me a while.

Growing up in the South Bronx, was there a concept of art?

Only by chance, yes. I had seen art but I didn't really understand it. They gave out free passes to public school kids for the Museum of Modern Art. It knocked my socks off. I made a joke, but it is not really a joke, it is the truth, that whenever you went to MoMa, there were always very pretty girls there. So, that was my introduction into so called 'art'. I guess I wasn't such a loud mouthed kid as I thought. An awful lot of people, and I don't know how they had the patience, were extremely kind to me. Seriously. I didn't have to fight my way through. As an artist it was another story. When it became obvious to me that I knew what I was going to try to do, I remember some very established artists telling me “Hey kid, everybody says your crazy, your not crazy, but how to fuck are you going to make a living?"

Did that excite you?

No, I had used up my excitement by that time. The gentile poverty of being an artist was far less daunting than trying to decide where I fit in positively in society. I come from a background of social engagement and civil rights long before it was fashionable, so I felt a bit of guilt for stepping aside and saying essentially instead of changing the temporal, I was literally trying to change the culture. It took a while and an awful lot of guilt. A lot of self searching to get to the point where I began to think it really was possible, by making art to change the logic structure of society.

There must have been a strong feeling of change since the release of your firstArtist Statement?

No, I was lucky because I had an audience from the very beginning. Mainly consisting of artists. It was small, perhaps it made noise, but it had no power. I never felt like I was one against the world, it just was a little hard. There were difficulties, but they were from my own choice. I had the opportunity to teach, but I wanted not to. When you teach, you take on an authority and you are responsible for people. Artists are not supposed to have authority. You are supposed to really and truly be the scribbler on the ground. Maybe it was a romantic choice. The making of art is about what you show, it is not about this persona that they are trying to build around you.

Do you feel your work is ever romantic?

Aspirational, yes. Of course, doesn't everybody? With every work that I show, if people accept the logic structure it would radically change their attitude towards life. I try to make work that nobody can use if they are not willing to accept a change in whatever logic structure they are stuck in. Art is supposed to change the way you relate to the world at large. Hey, thats not romantic, is it? But, I guess aspirational is not so bad.

Lawrence Weiner'sBE THAT AS IT MAYis held at London'sLisson Galleryuntil 12 January 2013