the exhibition includes works done in 1998 by visual artist keith haring (1958 - 1990) in collaboration with the writer william s. burroughs (1914 - 1997). ìapocalypseî is the title of the series made up with ten silk-screen works and a large-format collage, all by keith haring, which sustain a dialogue with texts expressly written by william burroughs. the series makes use of universal icons pertaining to a universal culture and thought in order to reflect upon the state of the world today and the future which the current conflicts and calamities anticipate. two videos from equipo moral (chema alonso and carlos t. mori), based on the materials exhibited, are also shown.
william burroughs, a stalwart of the beat generation along with jack kerouac and allen ginsberg, became a reference point of the new york underground scene in the late seventies and the early eighties. it was an anarchic movement of writers, artists and musicians looking for an alternative to the capitalist northamerican model. one of the youngest looking for a new way of expression was keith haring. burroughs and haring met in 1983 and they developed a solid friendship which brought them to collaborate in two closely related projects: ìapocalypseî (1988) and ìthe valleyî (1989). doubtless, they belong to different generations but shared similar ideas and preocupations about vital issues. burroughs imagined that the virus which infected modern society are tantamount with haring’s wall drawings, as well as with his own virus, aids, which by then he knew he was nursing and than would prematurely severe his life. with a visual cut-up, the images therefore describe burroughs’ catastrophic premonitions with a babylonian feeling and a chaotic, confusing effect. a unique opportunity to witness a generational dialogue between two matchless creators, which allows for a very personal visit to the most personal world of both.
the exhibition has been produced by the contemporary art centre of granada and the jose saramago de castril centre, also in granada, and has been brought to several cities of the spanish state. it can be seen in barcelona, on the 3rd floor of the cccb, until the 28th of november, at regular exhibition times.
as a complement to the exhibit, the group apocalypse was formed by alejandro martin, j.a. salinas (both members of maine) and francis martin in order to endow the project with a soundtrack from burrough’s texts. the group will perform on november 5th at the cccb’s hall whilst equipo moral will take care of the videographic images. the producer of the record included in apocalypse’s catalogue is harold burgon.


 

HURRY UP. THE APOCALYPSE HAS COME.


Part I. The Prophet of the Final Apocalypse.

Like most people I live in a continual state of panic. We’re virtually threatened every second. This is a very unfunny decade, a very grim decade. Grim and nasty. William S. Burroughs, September 1990.

William Seward Burroughs, the third member of the trio that included Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, founders of the Beat Generation, is the patron saint of the underground and punk scene that appeared in Manhattan’s East Village in the late 70s and early 80s. It consisted of an anarchical movement of writers, musicians and artists looking for a response to the model of progress, American capitalism and social conformism that had dominated since the 50s and 60s, and which included a highly active young Keith Haring. Some, such as Polina Mackay, consider that at the time the New York district formed the ideal setting for Naked Lunch, the Bible of the day: an obsession with all forms of virus, aliens, government conspiracies, addictions to anything and everything, fervent artistic experimentation, the paranoid search for a way out, the unpicking of the so-called American dream, homosexuality, outrageous parties, etc.
In Naked Lunch (1958), William Burroughs already sees himself as being inextricably caught up in the whirlwind of progress and the power of the system. An apocalypse created and brought on by productive, scientific, artistic and philosophical institutions that use the language of progress to inject citizens with a fatal virus.
However, Burrough’s first appearance in his capacity as a prophet of the apocalypse comes in 1980 at the Planet Earth Conference, held at the Institute of Ecotechnics in Aix-en-Provence, France. He gave a talk entitled “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” in which he described the elements mentioned above as the forming the basis for his concept of the apocalypse. An apocalypse that, as we can see, also has its basis in the world today. According to Burroughs, the only solution is “to start running, to get out of here”, starting from scratch and learning a whole new language.


II The Prophet’s Angel-Envoy

My interest lies in creating works of art that can be seen and used by as many individuals as possible, people who have totally differing views of the work and who do not confer a single definitive meaning upon it. I am merely an intermediary trying to find common ground for vastly differing ideas. Keith Haring, October 1978

Keith Haring is a child of Pop Art, Andy Warhol, comics, Walt Disney, science fiction, the mass media, the age of television and video, robots, computers, technology, the nuclear age, disco music and rap, sex and drugs, AIDS and AZT, Burroughs and the effervescent East Village of the late 70s and early 80s.
True to the “do it yourself” spirit of his generation and the new aesthetics that took the art galleries and museums of the day by surprise, Haring searches for an outlet for his work by showing – together with the graffiti artists - that something exists on the other side of the system that the majority of artists allow themselves to get caught up in. Haring has no need for the art gallery or that ideal person who will cleverly insert him into the art establishment.
He leaves his mark wherever he goes and everywhere. Haring uses the streets and those city centre locations chosen for mass consumption and a range of media to leave his messages: chalk in the subway; marker pens on neon signs, sprays and thick brushes on walls, photocopies on streetlamps and walls that are just begging for posters, etc.
Haring creates an iconography without precedent in the history of 20th century art, making it as famous as the logos of the multinationals, using a totally contemporary vocabulary based on allegorical figures and abstract formulas in order to communicate his vision and warning for modern day society: television sets that are never turned off (the power of the media); toxic computers (the dehumanising nature of technology); the omnipresent dollar (the power of money); radiantly happy babies (childhood, life, happiness and the positive side of humanity); humans engaged in sex (sexuality, the transmission of energy, homosexuality); dance and entwined bodies (men and women’s need to interrelate, friendship, brotherhood, union, collaboration); slaves (degrading attitudes, apartheid); serpents (the temptations of the modern world); the pyramids and flying saucers (sacred objects, the transmitters of energy), etc.
His popularity grows in proportion to the degree of understanding of his works. His desire to target and connect with popular culture leads to a rejection and certain disdain by the art world, yet it remains the perfect iconography for transmitting the apocalyptic message of the Prophet Burroughs.
The life of Keith Haring is intense, radiant, sincere, honest, generous, exemplary and passionate. He experiences his own frantic Calvary, and when he sees those around him submitting to the ravages of AIDS and being forced to face up to death, he devotes his days to visiting his friends, going to parties, meeting new people, falling in love, having sex and above all, painting everything that he imagined he would never be capable of painting. For he knows that his contribution to the world lies in his talent for drawing (“I intend to draw everything I can, for as many people and for as long as I am able”). Despite the Judgement Day that he feels is always just a breath away, he never sees the world in a negative light. None of Haring’s work is shocking or unpleasant to contemplate. Whilst Burroughs saw literature as the sole means of escape, Haring declares that “when we understand our ephemeral nature, when we accept the concept of self-destruction, then we begin to be aware of our destiny and are forced to face up to it. Art is the only possible response in the face of destruction (annihilation)”.


Part III. The Apocalypse

Like Dante and Titian getting together …when all reputation settle down, Burroughs and Haring will be beacons, because Apocalypse is one of the century's great work of art. Timothy Leary, 1988

After Burroughs the Prophet and Haring, one of his most popular followers, eventually meet and strike up a deep friendship, in 1988 they decide to join forces to write and illustrate Apocalypse. This is a relationship in which the writer sees both sides as sharing equal weight, particularly after the surprise he experienced on observing the results of the young painter’s work ("When I saw his silk screens for the first time, it was a shock - but a good shock").
Based on the apocalyptic vision that "Nothing is real. Everything is permitted", and its consequences: "It's all make-believe, illusion, dream, ART", Burroughs depicts the arrival of a new order, a new language, an end to the virus, an end to disease, enabling Man to recover his senses and experience this new reality. A liberating apocalypse, with no Satan, anti-Christ or disasters in sight.
For Keith Haring this apocalypse is the means of showing that the spirit is the way of enabling his art and doomed body to live on, and also of facing the horrors of his illness.
An illness that becomes the central figure of the composition, through the “demon sperm”, the agent of the fatal virus. A “demon sperm” created that year and that was to become part of the author’s large iconography; the year when Haring learns that sooner or later he’s going to die, although it wasn’t until a year later that he publicly admitted he was HIV positive.
Influenced by Burrough’s “cut-up” technique, the ten works that make up Apocalypse combine self-explanatory symbols that are easy to understand, yet in combinations and juxtapositions that offer us the opportunity to simultaneously obtain varying impressions. They create an almost dream-like state, in which one part makes sense, yet the other is contradictory, despite the fact that both co-exist as a single reality.
Committed, painful, brilliant, suggestive, educational, revealing,… the results of the combined efforts of these two 20th century giants not only reveal that we are unaware of what we really know, reaffirming the idea that there is no end, but also act as a starting point for something totally different and brand new.
And creating something new and different is precisely the aim of the Saramago Centre. And it is also the aim of this exhibition: to interrelate disciplines such as art, literature, music and video to create an alternative means of escape towards a different reality.
I would like to thank everyone who has been involved in this project, much more than just an exhibition, and without whom it would have been impossible: Juan Mar, for his vision and trust; Dumia, for always being there; Xavier Monsalvatje, for his support, company, advice and hard work; Alejandro Martín, Salinas and Francis Martín for their efforts and skill at capturing the essence of Burrough’s Apocalypse and for creating the amazing sound track for the project;; Carlos T. Mori and Chema Alonso (Equipo Moral), for providing so much more than they were originally asked for; Harold Burgon, for his wisdom, professionalism and patience; Jaime Lavagne, for knowing so much and his trips to Lugo; Raúl "Sex" for his co-ordination; Rosa Morillas for her proof-reading, knowledge and everything else still to be done; designer Javieribáñez for his excellent taste; Carlos, Gema and everyone at Subterfuge for their enthusiasm; Nilo Casares; Sarah Moss; Gabri "Eraserhead"; the Granada Provincial Council; Pilar del Río and José Saramago; the people of Castril; and everyone indirectly related to Apocalpyse, for their energy before and during; the staff at Granada Networks, D-Látex, the team at the Museum in Lugo, headed by Encarna Lago, and finally the family, Antonio Pareja, the Beas, the members of Contemporánea and friends.

To the memory of our friend Keith and grandfather William.

Mario Martín Pareja
Exhibition organiser



 

Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage

William S. Burroughs


It can certainly be paradoxical to talk about the work of a writer who believed that “language is a virus.” Even more so is the fact that Burroughs made use of that “virus” and picked out writing as the tool to accomplish his self-reflection act. But if we come to think about it, the life of William S. Burroughs (1914-1997) is, if not contradictory, at least, certainly ambiguous. His grandfather, from whom he inherited his name, was the inventor of the adding machine. The patrimony of the Burroughs Adding Machine Corporation permitted William S. Burroughs II to be raised with economic comfort and provided the family with a prominent place in St. Louis. Yet, he was never comfortable with this position because he thought that the high society of Missouri did not really accept his family. Anyway, one thing is clear: the fact that he belonged to this family was beneficial for him, because he could study at Harvard and enjoy a privileged position, since his parents continued helping him with his expenses even after graduation.
Burroughs was a rebel that enjoyed questioning the established order and disobeying rules. This rebelliousness, together with his passion for guns and books made of him a weird hybrid that did not fit in the middle class society of Missouri. He projected an image surrounded by a certain halo of eerie mystery and provocation since his childhood. When he was eight, the precocious William wrote his first autobiographical short story and also shot his first gun. Curiously enough, these two facts that took place during his eighth year of life seem to be a premonition of his future: he would be a famous and controversial writer arousing extreme opinions, and he would also kill his wife accidentally when playing William Tell at a party in Mexico. He was never tried for this, because everybody was too high on drugs and too drunk to remember what had really happened
It is obvious we can catalogue Burroughs under many labels except under the one of “conventional.” We are not talking about a mainstream writer, but rather an “icon of pop culture.” He has been called “Punk Grandpa” and, at the same time, he has been awarded the responsibility of being the re-inventor of modern literature, as if he were the recipient of both culture and counterculture, or even a kind of subculture. Since the emergence of the Beat movement (named so by Jack Kerouac) that had Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” as a definitive impulse, controversy was served. Beats were “beaten” but they were also “beatific” and holy. “Beat” included prosaic and spiritual concepts. Beat writers expressed themselves in a very crude way, they exposed their minds and their bodies naked, they experienced things in order to feel and be able to talk about it in an open way.
The majority of critics and biographers considered Burroughs as one of the pivotal figures of the Beat Generation but he did not feel in the least intellectually identified with the group. He said that he did not share either their aims or their literary style. This claim is only another proof of one of his hallmarks: he did not feel socially integrated. By this I am not only referring to the society of Missouri, as I have previously pointed out, but to society in general. He did not feel part of any of the places where he lived, because he did not want to follow the rules of human behavior (as a social animal). Maybe this is the reason why he was known as “the invisible man” when he was living in Morocco, although it is more than probable that his gray suit (vest and hat included), along with his emaciated aspect, helped to build the nickname. Although he definitely shared time, friendship, projects, conversations and drugs with the beats, his individualistic character did not make him belong to this group in the sense of “literary generation.” He always preferred to have different cultural and social sources that would lead him, in due time, to have different and varied projects, such as Apocalypse (1988), with Haring, or a Nike commercial with Spike Lee.
Among other things, Beats have always been provocative, irreverent and anarchic. Maybe because of this it has been written more about theirs lives than about theirs works. Most of them declared themselves active homosexuals, addicted to substances —Burroughs himself was addicted to heroin and initiated his wife into drugs; they were challenging and contradictory —in the same group we can find people who practiced Zen philosophy and Buddhism, and others, like Burroughs who remained fascinated by guns. In short, they were intellectuals who refused to be anchored to the conventionality of the American fifties. They refused the image projected by this decade, with the typical values of nation and family represented by the emblematic American middle class (white, Protestant and heterosexual), which incarnated the image of the consumer society that would very soon be exported to Europe and become a stereotype.
Burroughs’ prose is endowed with an experimental radicalism that results in the fact that the only commitment is precisely with a liberal prose deprived of any meaningless rhetorical artifice. This radicalism is the result of an absolute introspection, of a nakedness of the mind that brings the writer to experiment with everything at hand. This results in a crude realism brought about by extreme situations (mostly drug-induced). Burroughs mutilated part of his little finger in a pseudo rite of passage in order to impress a friend. We feek trapped between a Naturalist realism and a kind of sui generis surrealism, closer to a parody of life, to a chronicle of underground reality, totally dominated by the universe of drug, and which is masterfully told by Burroughs with his perverse and intelligent cynicism. In fact he liked to call his novels “satires” and we certainly can see a perfect inversion of the American dream, the invalidation of all these values promulgated by the happy America of the 50’s, the rebellion against the repressive conformity and rigidity of this society.
As early as in his first works Burroughs uses ecstatic and monolithic figures that represent the typical domestic and industrial character of the American society towards the end of the 50’s and 60’s. These images symbolize the conventionality of this “under-developed” society and, at the same time, suggest the inevitable changes that would take place later and that would end up in the demonstrations and riots of 1968. After Junky (1953), his first novel, his most charismatic and emblematic work was produced, The Naked Lunch (1959), which together with Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems (1956) and Kerouac’s On the Road (1955) was one of the central works of the beat manifesto. Burroughs was a prolific author who devours reality and transcribes it with his incisive prose, in a caustic and unembellished language that borders on a nightmare that takes place in a grotesque urban landscape. He uses his own experiences, his acquaintances and his life as the material to create this distorted vision of reality that he depicts on the pages. In Exterminator (1973) he speaks of his conception of art as an “aggressive action” and he identifies the writer with a vermin exterminator —he held this kind of job for a while and he even boasted that he was really good at detecting cockroaches. In 1983 William S. Burroughs and Keith Haring (1958-1990) met at a party and started a friendship that will give birth to two joint projects: Apocalypse (1988), and The Valley (1989). In the former, the artists present their personal conception of the world and their vision of American society, their particular revelation that suggests going back to a simpler life, to the origins. In the latter they express the concept of isolation of the human being and his/her need to escape. Haring does it in fifteen etchings and Burroughs puts words to them in fifteen hand-written messages. Although Apocalypse and The Valley are pretty different, they are intimately related. In both of them we can clearly see that these two men belong to different generations, but they share similar yearnings and worries about life.
In Apocalypse we can appreciate that Haring’s prints and Burroughs’ apocalyptic impressions are a complementary whole —almost indivisible— that shocks the viewer/reader as a kind of stroke, as a sudden and inevitable epiphany. Apocalypse reflects destruction, the revelation of a necessary end for this life as consumer society but, at the same time, it gives a hopeful message, a message of life. One needs strength in order to enact this rebellion. Both painter and writer fabricate the same apocalyptic images, but they use different media. Since this work is a collaboration of both artists, the images are closely related and it is difficult to decide which ones are more shocking or revealing. Texts and prints are lively, colorful and contemporary. They produce an impression on the reader/viewer that has nothing to do with the idea of death, but rather with the timelessness of the dichotomy life vs. death, with the suddenness of both, and the capacity of change. In Apocalypse the narrative rhythm is fast and vertiginous. Burroughs, as the rest of the beats, inherits the automatic kind of writing of the innovative avant-gardists of the 30’s. This kind of writing is especially suitable for the theme of this work, because it produces a world sunk into Babylonian confusion. By means of repetitions and juxtapositions, Burroughs achieves to express stylistically the same as Haring expresses by means of superimposed images. This simultaneity produces a dizzy sensation. One thing leads to another in a cause-effect relationship, in a kind of entropy that the human being is unable to detain. Both Haring’s images and Burroughs’ words represent chaos and decay, but they do not necessary mean destruction. They reflect a dystopia that suggests the need to react, to evolve and act against the society that alienates the human being, in order to transform it.


Rosa Morillas Sánchez
University of Granada
 

INTRODUCTION

Mariners sailing close to the shores of Tuscany heard a voice cry out from the hills, the trees and the sky: "The Great God Pan is dead!" Pan, God of Panic: the sudden awareness that everything is alive and significant. The date was December 25, 1 A.D. But Pan lives on in the realm of the imagination, in writing and painting and music. Look at Van Gogh's sunflowers, writhing with portentous life; listen to the Pipes of Pan in Joujouka. Now Pan is neutralized framed in museums, entombed in books, relegated to folklore. But art is spilling out of its frames into subway graffiti. Will it stop there? Consider an apocalyptic statement: "Nothing is true. Everything is permitted." - - Hassan i Sabbah. Not to be interpreted as an invitation to all manner of restrained and destructive behavior; that would be a minor episode, which would run its course. Everything is permitted because nothing is true. It is all make-believe, illusion, dream...ART. When art leaves the frame and the written word leaves the page - - not merely the physical frame and page, but the frames and pages of assigned categories - - a basic disruption of reality itself occurs: the literal realization of art. This is a very different direction from Duchamp, Klein and Manzoni, of appropriating everything in sight by signing it or putting it on a pedestal. Instead of appropriating by framing and signing, remove the frames and the pedestals, yes, even the signatures. Every dedicated artist attempts the impossible, Success will write APOCALYPSE across the sky. The artist aims for a miracle. The painter wills his picture to move off the canvas with a separate life, movement outside of the picture, and one rent in the fabric is all it takes for pandemonium to sluice through.






Last act, the End, this is where we all came in. The final Apocalypse is when every man sees what he sees, feels what he feels, and hears what he hears. The creatures of all your dreams and nightmares are right here, right now, solid as they ever were or ever will be, electric vitality of careening subways faster faster faster stations flash by in a blur.

Pan God of Panic, whips screaming crowds, as millions of faces look up at the torn sky:

OFF THE TRACK! OFF THE TRACK!







The planet is pulling loose from its moorings, careening into space, spilling cities and mountains and seas into the Void, spinning faster and faster as days and nights flash by like subway stations. Iron penis chimneys ejaculate blue sparks in a reek of ozone, tunnels crunch down teeth of concrete and steel, flattening cars like beer cans. Graffiti eats through glass and steel like acid, races across the sky in tornados of flaming colors.
 

Cherry-pickers with satin brushes big as a door inch through Wall Street, leaving a vast souvenir postcard of the Grand Canyon. Water trucks slosh out paint, outlaw painters armed with paint pistols paint everything and everyone in reach. Survival Artists, paint cans strapped to their backs, grenades at their belts paint anything and anybody within range. Skywriters, dogfight, collide and explode in paint. Telephone poles dance electric jigs in swirling crackling wires. Neon explosions and tornados flash through ruined cities, volcanoes spew molten colors as the earth's crust buckles and splinters into jigsaw pieces.







The household appliances revolt: washing machines snatch clothes from the guests, bellowing Hoovers suck off makeup and wigs and false teeth, electric toothbrushes leap into screaming mouths, clothes dryers turn gardens into dust bowls, garden tools whiz through lawn parties, impaling the guests, who are hacked to fertilizer by industrious Japanese hatchets. Loathsome, misshapen, bulbous plants spring from their bones, covering golf courses, swimming pools, country clubs and tasteful dwellings.
 

At my back - faster and faster - I always hear hurry up - energy ground down into - please it's time closing - sidewalks and street by billions of feet and tires erupt from manholes and tunnels break out with volcanic force let it come down careening subways faster and faster stations blur by, Pan whips screaming crowds with flaming pipes millions of faces look up at the torn sky OFF THE TRACK OFF THE TRACK the planet is pulling loose from its moorings, careening off into space spilling cities and mountains and seas into the Void faster and faster.







This is where we all came in blue and white paint from when Everyman sees color nightmares are right here warehouses and piers electric energy floods inorganic molds subways faster and faster, glass steel girder Pan God of Panic whips screaming concrete, faces look up at the torn sky and burn with madness. TRACK the planet is pulling bucking cars and trucks careening into space faster and faster into the Void spinning walks and streets flash by like subway stations in a reek of ozone.







Force let it come, skyscrapers scrape rents of the final Apocalypse in the sky, dream rivers splashing color across solid roads and buildings, AMOK art vitality stirring passions of metal blur by writhing in mineral lusts. Walls of glass melt OFF THE TRACK OFF a billion crazed eyes, the sidewalks run feet and tires, chimneys ejaculate blue tunnels break out graffiti village pulled across the sky in flaming colors.







Skyscrapers scrape rents of blue and white paint from the sky, the rivers swirl with color, nitrous ochres and reds eat through the bridges, falling into the rivers, splashing colors across warehouses and piers and roads and buildings, AMOK art floods inorganic molds, stirring passions and metal and glass, steel girders writhing in mineral lusts burst form their concrete covers, wall of glass melt and burn with madness in a billion crazed eyes, bridges buck cars and trucks into the rivers, the sidewalks run ahead faster and faster, energy ground down into sidewalks and streets by billions of feet and tires erupts from manholes and tunnels, breaks out with volcanic force:

LET IT COME DOWN

Caught in New York beneath the animals of the village, the Piper pulled down the sky.