Burroughs, Lynch and Warhol (17 January – 30 March 2014)

Admission to Burroughs, Lynch and Warhol
£4 (£2.50 concs)
Free admission on Monday from 10.00-18.00 and Thursday from 18.00-20.00

William S. Burroughs (1914-1997) was one of the most influential American writers of the 20th century. Despite his prolific achievements as a novelist, essayist, spoken word performer and painter, Burroughs’ work as a photographer is rarely acknowledged. Coinciding with the centenary of Burroughs’ birth, Taking Shots will be the first exhibition worldwide to focus on Burroughs’ vast photographic oeuvre and offers new and important insights into his artistic and creative processes. Burroughs’ photographs, striking in their self-containment, lack any reference to other practitioners or genres. While they can be gathered into categories of street scenes, still lifes, collage, radio towers, people – his dynamic approach to image making sits outside of any canonical structure.

Taking Shots is curated by Patricia Allmer, Chancellor’s Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, and author John Sears.

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Anyone familiar with David Lynch’s (b. 1946, USA) enigmatic visual language will identify similarities between this series of photographs and his iconic films. Featuring black and white interiors and exteriors of industrial structures, the exhibition exudes his unique cinematic style through dark and brooding images.

Shot in various locations including Germany, Poland, New York, New Jersey and England, the works depict the labyrinthine passages, detritus and decay of these man-made structures – haunting cathedrals of a bygone industrial era slowly being taken over by nature.

The exhibition is the first European showcasing of this project and is accompanied by one of Lynch’s sound installations.

David Lynch: The Factory Photographs is curated by Petra Giloy-Hirtz, a curator and author based in Munich, Germany.