Copyright William S. Burroughs Estate

Another post celebrating the William S. Burroughs centenary, this video is a fascinating document of the man himself visiting a gallery show of his own paintings on paper at Galerie Waschsalon in Frankfurt, Germany. Here, we see Burroughs accompanied by Udo Breger and Burrough’s man Friday, James Grauerholz. Breger is a writer and publisher who published works by Burroughs and other Beat luminaries including Allen Ginsberg, Brion Gysin and John Giorno.

In this video, the trio meets up, hits the gallery and then relaxes with a chat and a smoke. Burroughs’ paintings look sharp, seemingly presented in frame-less displays, sandwiched between sheets of glazing. The works here appear to be Gysin-esque abstracts, but it’s kind of hard to tell as the camera continually follows Burroughs’ meandering, never stopping to linger on the paintings.

This video is from 1990 and it’s a fascinating window into the last period of the artist’s work. Here you go…

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