William S. Burroughs, the bespectacled countercultural icon that lived a life more extreme than you could possibly imagine, would be 100 years old this year. A wealth of tributes, reminiscences plus events have been taking place across the international for the ‘Burroughs Centennial’, reflecting the writer’s continuing influence since his death in 1997. Into this wide sweep of Burroughs related phenomena, Sonic Youth founder plus punk Renaissance man Thurston Moore has put together an exhibition displaying documentation from 1978’s Nova Convention, at the Red Gallery in the aching heart of hipster Shoreditch.
In his program note, Moore remembers how, at 19, he sat in the Entermedia Theatre in New York City to hear the poets plus musicians gathered to pay tribute to the then 64-year old Burroughs: Patti Smith, Frank Zappa, Brion Gysin, Ed Sanders plus John Giorno, just a small selection of those inspired by his work. And what a night! Zappa reading the ‘Talking Asshole’ section from Naked Lunch, Giorno intoning his meditations of love plus life, Patti Smith apparently wielding a clarinet for her performance plus Eileen Myles causing a stir with her re-enactment of Burroughs’ fatal ‘William Tell’ shooting of his second wife in Mexico City. These moments are documented in the photographs plus materials of the exhibition itself, with a spattering of examples of Burroughs’ work and, in a nice touch, recent work from Moore’s classes at Naropa University that is still influenced by Burroughs today.
The exhibition consists primarily of a wall of James Hamilton photographs that document the Nova Convention itself. Hamilton, then a staff photographer for the Village Voice roamed around backstage catching the performers plus friends chatting, drinking plus laughing in a police line-up of countercultural celebrities, from Allen Ginsberg to Terry Southern, John Cage plus Phillip Glass. Goofing around plus chatting, the legendary figures of the artistic underground look like nothing so much as good friends having a good time (as they were). Facing these photographs on the other wall are framed examples of Burroughs’ recorded output, the vinyl artwork of Call Me Burroughs plus Elvis of Letters displayed proudly along the wall in LP frames. The clearest intersection of music plus Burroughs’ writing, these records are the first point of contact with his work for many. In conversation Moore explained that he hoped to rotate the record sleeves during the exhibition’s run to give a broader sweep of the depth of Burroughs’ recorded output, which spanned from simple spoken word to the orchestral bombast of Dead City Radio.