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 the unseen art of william s burroughs
 to access audio and video on collective you need real player.Shooting up at London’s Riflemaker gallery. Should writers paint? Should musicians write? Should artists make music? We live in an era of the slash (artist slash curator slash poet) and you could question if this creates good creatives or just work without focus. In William Burroughs’ case, though, his artwork sits perfectly next to his writing.Part of Burroughs’ success and attraction was his persona. The Beat poet and novelist garnered as many fans for his writing, as attention for his drug consumption. (His most famous novels Junky and Naked Lunch certainly helped the reputation.) Burroughs was a morphine-addicted, whisky-swilling, gun-shooting maverick of the old school. This 12-week exhibition, in three parts at the appropriately named Riflemaker gallery, shows another side to the writer.  The first part of the exhibition is a series of Shot Sheriff drawings. (Part two focuses on wood sculptures; part three on Burroughs’ visual influences, from Paul Klee to Rauschenberg.) This initial show brings together a large series of hand-scribbled portraits of authority figures, used by Burroughs as DIY target practice for his shotgun. The scratchy, violently drawn faces on sketch pad paper are littered with shotgun holes. Together the faces resemble a wall of corpses on a battlefield. Burroughs apparently would talk to the marker-pen portraits like a Wild West gunman before shooting them down with childlike joy. Their titles are equally brilliant – Friendly, No Morphine, a red-eyed demonic face Shot Before He Asks Questions, a bald, alien-like Man In The Moon. The drawings, created in the early 90s, are wild, fresh and fast. Their DIY violence would sit well next to Basquiat, graffiti tags and Raymond Pettibon drawings. Is the work deeply skilful? No. But does it have energy and power? Without a doubt.
Francesca Gavin
The Unseen Art Of William S Burroughs is at the Riflemaker gallery, London, until 12 November 05.
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