William Burroughs: Creative Observer

this week marks what would have been the one hundredth birthday of writer artist and lawrence resident william s burroughs i'm kate mcintyre and today on kkr's and we traveled down to the lawrence arts center to see how they are marking the occasion with an authentic self and much more we'll also check in at the university of kansas spencer museum of art which has its own world exhibit opening this week later this hour we'll also hear about a very special exhibit of the portraits of the kansas city public library featuring the work of g u professor in kansas public radio commentator john timmons william burroughs moved to lawrence in nineteen eighty one long after his reputation was established as an iconoclast beat generation some of his best known works by the novel naked lunch queer and junky he was also an avant garde visual artist pioneering the technique of shotgun paintings where he literally shot that can of paint or spray paint next a canvas or wood surface

many of his works are on display this month at the lawrence arts center earlier this week i spoke to susan tape executive director of the art center about their exhibit creative observer one of the questions we ask is why we do a show of the work of william s burroughs on his one hundredth birthday was the reason we started thinking about it but so is the physical proximity of his former home and his estate and i had a tremendous archive of his work and his collaborations with other artists to the art center and we've been lately thinking in terms of the development of a cultural district are in our arts and culture in intensive area of lawrence and the city is recognize this and the tourist trail comes right up to this area bros homes adjacent to it and we've been thinking about what it means to the identity of lawrence to have had such an iconic and controversy all

an iconoclast it figure live among us or he lived here longer than he lived anywhere in his life and he dies in lawrence it when he died in eighty seven my husband and i were in paris and his death was the front page of the paris newspaper not affected yours paper but the front page of the paris newspaper and are we were very intrigued by that something you just mentioned how controversial he was first month have you had to the art center are doing this and how could you met with some public criticism that i'm why are you why are you honoring him in this way we want to live and the work of the artists who are themselves controversy all or who were raising controversial questions no work this would be on stage and i'm in our galleries and fell all the time and facts when we choose work out whether it's for

performers exhibition where interested in the axles so the work how we can support an artist that but in addition and an equally what important questions does it raise anti really can't raise important questions without green little bit of controversy along the work of william s burroughs itself odd lots of controversy all as a human being and he raises questions in the minds of some people but so do many artists and so the question becomes what role does an artist's are another's biography play and criticism of his work and how do you understand the work if at all in terms of that artist's life and this happens with authors all the time in many of our most famous and beloved authors with william burroughs his role as although he'd he did not claim to be a part of the beat generation his role as a mentor to two very important members of the beat generation was in porn in our consideration on his role as one who very early broke

models of fiction the twentieth century models of fiction writing he was not a spokesman for the group you as a spokesman for a group so he did not consider himself so he was a spokesman for beat generation writers he lived by his own rules and created a space around him that allowed for a breaking rules that allowed first free thinking and that was an open invitation to artists of all state of all types to be near him in to create work that they might not have felt the freedom to do in another context of the three galleries we have that future work by william burroughs whatever galleries is i am devoted to work of burroughs that he didn't clap ration with some serious rule breakers and a french figures kurt cobain paddy smyth ralph steadman you did the illustrations for hunter s thompson box

and so we're interested in not just to look backward at what burroughs was we don't intend created server which is the title of our show to be nostalgic although certainly in a few days the show has been open on it has been the subject of a lot of our nostalgia and remembering by people who did know girls i did know him so i think of the show in terms of what questions it raises that are relevant to us in lawrence kansas questions about politics sexuality what is art surveillance which is of course of international concern now and bros raises questions in essays and fiction and in visual art and in film you just hit on a really important part of what's going on the part some of this month it's not just an exhibit cute guy i'm other works of him not just not just as written work that i gear swing a number of hits but his films what does that

bring to this experience creative observer is a cultural experience at the end of the work as we've presented it in this context is really greater than the individual parts dr bertucci to talk to people who knew abe burrows to art as for example john waters to issue related credit borrowers with asking younger artists like waters to break rules and their work and to not have a primary affiliations that except to oneself this i think brings into focus why we're really doing a show a girl's work with a series of seven films out with several talks including a talk by his most recent and most comprehensive biographer barry miles on on february first we have found that people are responding to the

show and in every way from just the sort of flat essentially workable in burleson to wire a sidewalk a work of labor us what does it mean and why is it important on to entities along to show the work of labor us it is people have already been coming from around the country to see the show there are two other main shows in honor of his one hundredth birthday when a new york and one in london that was when in germany at the end of two thousand thirteen but we're learning as we have each conversation with discovering new reasons why it matters to show the work of this artist we're the lawrence arts center we love lives and so part of what we do is excavate and illuminates what makes florence lawrence and everyone who loves her has some sort of pride media's in order to find some sort of pride in how were different and why do we drive different people why are we an

artistic community but we have a long history of iconic classic figures hear some of whom have become very famous just in our cultural district race in his church john brown rally troops from a block away there's a a black a little known black israelite movements and the preachers date on literally on some boxes are going to new hampshire to decline there police are indeed twenty and the twentieth century i just read a book about the us and all of these people became figures whose whose politics were in question and in some ways his lifestyles and questions john and labor us is in that group but we believe that illuminating these stories is important to ask you're him aren't as part of what makes her place distinctive and it's basically going to linger here live here walk around have businesses here is there one event in particular you'd like to highlight yes on april

twelfth we have our benefit auctions and william burroughs is the featured artist and this is art our first time to highlight on the featured artist who's no longer alive but we have several works donated very generously donated to the lawyer terence winter by differences state one is a collaboration with ralph steadman and others the cooperation with keith haring and a third is a triptych are by girls from nineteen eighty three three museum quality very interesting and important pieces and the proceeds of the sale of those pieces along with the work donated by other artists will support for exhibitions program for another year and more and we also have a catalog that while there've been other way ambrose catalogs created this catalog is the only one to really have a lawrence kansas a focus

and burrows who came here the urging of his friend james grower holtz and did make or at home for the rest of his life and what he saw more ads that kept him here is one of the facets of the scallops demon of our show's theme kansas public radio has a copy of that creative observer catalog to give away courtesy of the lawrence arts center if you'd like a chance to win the creative observer catalog go to our website k pr back a youth that edu and click on ticket giveaway again that's katie art that cake you that edu and click on ticket giveaway the exhibit creative observer was co curated by ben elvers exhibits director of the art center and you're easy panic then and i walk through the exhibit space this week so this room there were rumors the largest county cabinets exclusively his

artwork included in the exhibit in this room we have a studio doors which are the main feature towards the back side of the gallery and then we'll certainly his tools that he used in a case that time that i think it's become a fun game cause you'll see some of these some of the imagery some of these tools will you'll still see the impression so especially that this dance halls and the smelling really which is just rubble tennis net or a fishing net out to know what it is it's incredibly brittle now is it's ten years of paint on it but it shows up often in some of these pieces and then stick from his yard the shooting surfaced been cut to sort of a claw and they're very few cases that have this school

you know the river closed that he would use to keep their projects and plunger ensure you'll hear directly our circulation and future gigs was made with the plunger so everyone so i can see this and so really using that to push the paint around them every once a while you get the perception is happening there's something there's something to that but i find it refreshing that he was open to using whatever whatever you wanted these oddities next this is a shot please and that the netting that i was referring to that's what you see here in this red that you see within the circles of martin logan speakers which are manufactured here and in lawrence he just got scrap pieces about facing to be at the speaker what lay that down on the plywood spray over that so there

is there's a richness here that i see there's a handful of colors that have been used that could pop out of her once on the greens here that the metallic in the lights really changes what you're going to see here then there's also call than nothing which were likely done with with a gun fact i'm certain of that time i don't know what jenny used for this particular peace yet some of the others that are here more obvious it was a shotgun because it just blows the back he says this is one of the one of the earlier cases here there were there there are many of these around i was particularly fond of this particular piece because of its size because of the fragile quality that it's that it's now in its down steadily serve of contradictory things happening in it and in the compositions of that either so i think it's a it sounds wild as some of the others it's to the colors are a bit more

muted and more organic but there was a good piece i don't think it has to be a way to not everything has to scream together some of the things that happened rick what it gets back to what i learned in this process the pieces that i was familiar with were bright in time violent shot pieces but the more i and again it's there's a lot that's very subtle and kind of beautiful in certain moments that have to because if you just going to drop it in order to get it and i think that's so important with with art in general you have a role do they observe you the observer and you have you have work to do when you're going to look at it in others there's there's an interaction an exchange that i think this is important with any with any piece of work whether it's worse visual performing her or literary and europe participants so that's one thing that we keep re emphasizing with this whole project that

yes it's when burrows and yes he's very is very famous in need lived here in lawrence but there's also been has also just been an artist and there's there's art art hasn't the us has a really important it's a tool for thinking and fur for learning about maybe what you think you know you're learning things that you don't know you know i think it's that's what it's for then you don't even need to walk inside the lawrence arts center to get your first taste of burroughs tommy well what we see from the street than to say i'm a projection of burrows during a reading and co curator yuri as authentic put that together hired somebody to do what's called mapping basically just that cuts out everything but the face and generally what we were thinking with all three of

these spaces the large delegates are containing the bulk of of his artwork the middle gallery contains collaboration city did with with many people through for many years and the front gallery we wanted we wanted to address his literary legacy which is pretty substantial and down not not isolated from everything everything else because i think there's it's connected was no way of disconnecting his legacy as a writer on what i wanted is for the viewers to house no doubt that this man did a lot of a lot of things happened as a result of his work so we really you know the bills or wallpaper in the book covers that was probably five hundred book covers in there yet and so that's and then the whole room evolved from over discontent filled with stacks of

reel bros books and all along knew we wanted to do this projections thing that seemed pretty pretty doable that we could we could figure out how to make this work we've referred to him as the full boroughs you know at night really it's really pronounced in its kind of creepy but you know the us is a very distinct face in a very distinct voice and so on you know we won and the book covers and what it was that you when it's about that's about for you may never known anything about him or you think you know something about there's no question you can question ethics and you can question why <unk> quest talks to fall a month but there's no doubt the man was a creator and an innovator and the evidence is his hearing and all three of these bases but the books have a really ooh ooh long long lasting and wide reaching skilled

and that's a that's what we wanted to address in the floor is a mess so how many different book titles and essayist theodor they're all listed on their own sorrow and a century that reason i think we did it can you know the people who knew him while while he was living here and wants their reactions have been funded till here and all positive and everybody's been really really receptive to the whole presentation and i think you know i think it's in a good service in a disservice by presenting it well and we worked together this day ten minutes and i worked together on the whole thing from the exhibits to all programming and everything else in the fall speaking of those people who knew him when he was in lawrence coming up this week is very special storytelling event tell me about that what carson are trying to do it's really gets it i hate to say like a memorial service but it so there's so many great stories i've heard in this whole process and even prior today

everything from people who were very close to him out to have some great story about going out to shoot guns at the plywood around to other people who saw him that dylan's buying cat food or have some conversation about cats is just the guy really but he has this global reputation and yet his justice just an old man who likes caps and gown so anyway it's an opportunity and so i think yeah yet the range of people a range of stories i don't really know exactly what's going to happen when we have a few people confirmed that little be here that were really integral to to his time here in march but it can happen anywhere else his he's been so far removed timeline wise

from the other parts of the world that he lived in many of those people aren't around you know this is the last stop for him and along to stop him so while most people especially in a james is the heaviest eighties is still here in lawrence i think it's gonna be it's going to be a lot of fun entertaining but i really hope it's insightful and sort of serves as a as a good backdrop to somewhat repeat will be surrounded with when we when the stories are being shared so i'm looking forward to it i think the term should be convicted thank you so much and that storytelling event will be seven o'clock this tuesday evening january twenty eight at the lawrence arts center i'm j mcintyre in connection with this event i'll be there along with at the mega real of the watkins community museum of history will be collecting and recording oral histories of area residents who have their own memories of william burroughs adding material tells us more so we are going to be present at the art center to

collect memories as anybody in town who have who have their own memories of their interactions with william burroughs we know that he cared for a number of years and if you ran into him at dylan's or at the hardware store we want to hear about it the sort of interactions a man on a day to day basis we think are really interesting and so there's a sort of memories that we will be collecting and recording at the arts center again i'll be at the lawrence arts center tuesday evening with anti matter real from the watkins museum of history it's part of the lawrence arts center storytelling event in commemoration of william s burroughs one of area residents who have a few of his own william burroughs stories to tell local artist wayne propst i understand when you personally for skin at her farmhouse the devil sitting together are lots of boats woman's story and it was he was

carrying a twenty two revolver harrington richardson pistol in a holster and we were walking around on my form and about in fifteen feet away was a tri we'd stop about twice as big as an ordinary pencil and he stopped and pointed at us all day five dollars i can hit that this is bill ford he was careful fire just awful awful that's good work they just in their own naughty language originals

he wants to forget from five dollars and table and that was the city like that those are real ice breaker i think that was from then on it not that i wasn't with the band anyway but boy that was just so much fun and it also showed me aside and that poses there is this kind of slow be boring seeing from your cat ever cruel beatnik and although black leotards you know that are so cruel anyway worst lifeline college how cool is that it's a whole different angle of cruel and it's also not the hypocritical cyclical suits a lot of

them so i don't care about the material world will cause i want my five dollars if you're closer i think about a time when you were with william burroughs remember doing with him what do you remember a typical day hanging out of power in the evening where he's sitting in his chair and i'm sitting in my chair teacher and i often spend another friend or something on this day so what is the most poisonous snake and david only serves why it's the sea snake that is correct this is a conversation many many times in one bite from the

sea snake law and then eventually that sort of notion gets reflected into his writings jerry also assess if you're going to be a snake during what's worse very quickly poisonous snakes so i think he'll leave of course jerry also or is a character in william burroughs novel the place of dead roads again that's local artist wayne propst with a few memories of his friendship with writer and artist william burroughs you can share your own stories about william burroughs at the lawrence arts center this tuesday january twenty eight the lawrence arts center is also presenting a number of films including william s burroughs commissioner of singers they were eighteen how all february twenty fourth and this film naked lunch on february eleven

experimental version that is the conclusion of which is the man talking about being serious songs so as just a mission that has gone our own image taken as science and you're trying to run an awfully good on than twenty boxes serious money in connection with the guy we're thinking of collaborative dangerous only songs which arrives so far from professional astronomer was bill that's just liberated exterminators that's an excerpt from a nineteen ninety one film naked lunch directed by david kronenberg based on the william burroughs novel the lord's arsenal so naked lunch on february eleven one of many events going on to commemorate the one hundredth birthday

of writer artist and lawrence resident william burroughs on february eight awards art center will stage a reading of the nervous set ricky april is directing this production which is described as a beat generation musical i never said it was a play that was developed at the crystal palace in st louis which of course was burroughs hometown it was also the hometown of jay landesman who went to new york in early in his life and developed a literary magazine called arabica and erotic it was the first magazine to publish kerouac and ginsburg marshall mcluhan in a bunch of the other beads and thrived for a little while and wow landesman was in greenwich village publishing this law larry magazine he hung out with all these people and when he came back to start this jazz club with his brother in st louis which was quarters one of the major stops in the midwest circuit the crystal palace i'm in a woody allen played there and charlie parker played there and barbra streisand got their start there and woody

i think if i said woody allen lenny bruce all these performers and all these comedians that were there and that during that time tommy wolf was there a jazz pianist and he began to set the lyrics of fran landesman to jay's wife he began to set the lyrics of fran landesman to music and as he said these songs to music the lambs men's decided that they would create a musical based on this image i had written a novel called the nervous set when he was in new york in nineteen fifty two so they turned that into a musical and at the saint louis grabs loved this musical it had jazz in it a couple of characters were based on and ginsburg were based on kerouac was very very exciting some producers came through and said let's take this to broadway and they went with the first producer they talked with them a little later on a lot of the big producers claimed they'd already sold the rights so and they've also already sold the rights to the most famous song from that musical which

is spring can really hang you up the most which is a jazz standard so when they went to broadway they went in nineteen fifty nine without the signature song unlimited budget character actor changes based on who was sleeping with a handout ended up being a real hit on broadway for about the first two weeks it was like a lightning rod everybody wanted to see these jazz musical and then it got some bad reviews and the funders lost confidence in a closed up to twenty nine performance is so what modern day audience get out of this performance it's really a fascinating piece are typically catholic priest predates a lot of us are a transformational musicals that came along later on you know with or it's got a lot of different scenes in the end the talk is kind of loosened lived almost like jules pfeiffer cartoon come to life and so to have seen and then move into these the songs on the songs really are jazz standards another famous

one from adidas the ballad of the sad young men which later became an anthem for the gay rights movement but at the time was just a one of the balance within india in the show and that is that it was very organic out was there was very much an ensemble piece there's a several songs that talk about we have a party birdie birdie birdie birdie birdie images go on and they had this kind of fifties jazz at her to the right area it there's a great song not because the ginsburg character and protection so popular but that the ginsberg character and in this is decides is going to the poetry and and sell pot slicing says great song so it's like there's all these references to this beat culture which very much just gonna make you think about well that's a little bit like what happens in the sixties and it's a little bit like

the kind of hipster culture today so the hope is that this all have some appeal to the twenties and thirties folks and then also everybody likes chess so i think in the lawrence arts and are bringing it back to the state have there been any attempts to revive the markets that washington university did a version of it in the nineties and that he just didn't play very well there was some problems everybody was a set that there's a bronze with a book that was a suicide at the end it didn't seem earned by the script by the dialogue a wonderful woman in rain trainer from washington dc got a hold of it after that performance and fell in love with the music and she went on and stayed with the landis wins in london they went from crystal palace in st louis to london in the sixties and they were part of the they were part of the sixties movement the whole movement sixties they hung out with yoko ono with the beatles and the rolling stones and they they knew absolutely everybody they were kind of jay rosen called himself like a cultural conflict that was his autobiography was tales of a

cultural kind so in their later life arranged from dc who operates the online magazine dc stage whatever got another landesman so they gave her permission to do a rewrite of that and it went to the chicago theater musical theater workshop the chicago a musical theatre workshop is a very well known new musical development process the developed here in town and so are the big musicals and he did pretty well then but they still thought the book had some problems and the little bit more work and then when we got ready to look at william burroughs alive we a started looking around the internet to see whether any musicals that barbie generation musicals and came across this animal are wonderful young intern seth appelman i just did the homework until he found the rain got us a couple korean trainer and she gave us the right to do this onstage to i'm reading on february eighth and then the hope is that at the stage reading those well we feel like this piece as legs for that for the two thousand teams that

doe will do for production next to fall late september early october our jazz ensemble be led by wayne hawkins who's a wonderful local jazz musician and it's a small cambodia piano we have bran baghdad on guitar we have taylor babylon the percussion we have carl space on saxophone and chris show will be playing the bass so their luggage as hers that have been around for a long time that worked ok jasmine cage's most remote player stage before and will be using the brand new steinway was this is serious ms

barlow ayers is linda owens brain can really hang you up the most run the movie musical the lawrence arts center is doing a staged reading of the nervous set on february eight as part of their commemoration of what would have been william burroughs is one hundredth birthday we heard from rick a girl who'll be directing them are just that i also checked in with kansas public radio's owned george harder host of a night on the town what i find interesting about the nervous set the musical is not all of the fact that few people never heard of it but it's the one and only beatnik musical do we have hair in the late sixties where we saw the piece for the first time and in nineteen sixty one with bye bye birdie we saw apple pie american teenagers and violist presley phenomenon on broadway so it makes sense that someone would try to capture that between movement of greenwich village in a broadway musical

richard rodgers in nineteen fifty nine saw one of the twenty three performances and he loved it and he insisted that his friend leonard bernstein come and see the show which bernstein did in fact ever to riders told the composers and the producers said that if you would like a quote from me to putting a newspaper ads giving into rabid you i'm certainly happy to do that but i think what appealed to richard rodgers is that even though richard rodgers was sometimes acerbic about other people's music and did not like raucous music at all did not like rock and roll i think he found this yet for county of this piece the nervous set dairy cutting edge for its day and i think that's what he liked about it because even though he was a great noticeably all those songs or the beautiful morning and from the sound of music and so forth

even though he was a great noticed and songwriter in that regard he was first and foremost a man of the theater and i think he liked the theater of the murders and what i do know about those the staging from some research that i've done is that it was a big hit in st louis and they knew they had something special but they're one of the producers start tampering with it so that it would appeal more to a new york audience when it moved to broadway and that's correct and one of the criticisms that the new york times said is that it was very muddy and you can follow it yet a few years later well and sniping seventy when george firth as stephen sondheim wrote company that is what the nerves that sort of looked like it was a non linear plot it was a series of skits that where the these dialogue wasn't that important but it was the emotion that you saw underneath

an emotion from the songs that carried that these from beginning to end that's the way company and polls and that's the way the nervous at work ten years more than ten years before company you've listen to the music from minerva said do you have any any the signs are really resonated for you one that i like very much because it it sounds like broadway and it's also very topical for its day and i think it's a good flavor of the wicked satire in the piece is the nervous set subversion of new york cars where is the same raising la na

na what baby don't you know that starts up on local police day you think that's new york from a tv musical the nervous set it's one of many activities going on in the month ahead at the lawrence arts center to mark what would have been the one hundredth birthday of writer artist and lawrence resident william burroughs you can find a complete listing of events on their website lawrence arts center dot org the spencer museum of art at the university of kansas is

also remembering boroughs with a small exhibit of their own william s burroughs one hundred years of expanding consciousness is on display at the rein in e white teaching gallery on the main floor of the spencer i visited the gallery with curator stephen goddard an intern laura mention orna very likely composition and that we have a lot of works on the state of women's girls on one term loan to us here at the art museum of course because of his long residency in the city armed and we have some works of our own is a world of her own by the museum so we decided just a minor own holdings on the nose of the un monitors for a long time and do that good a job as we could to summarize girls with what we have on hand not just as an artist this is an art museum where ann but also as an author which is of course an extremely important part of his career so we do have one word that has lots of words in and for example for some of his texts so in hope that visitors to this exhibit come away at where i guess on

i like people to be aware that girls wasn't just a writer that they may run out of red and they may know that he is an important figure in may nobody was a you know considered a founding member of the beat generation and things like that but i like to come over the sun city was much more than an altar that he was kind of a seeker in general amen that writing was one component of that is his world experiences for another his artwork simulations to people or another and that there is there's more to this dispersant than just books that might be on the shelf a little to his wedding is spectacular saddam needed to me that of all the clay cover we take a look at an item or to see what it is this and if you were standing in front of that's a dream machine which is an object that was designed by bryan tyson who was very interested in chance operations and yahoo pioneer the cut up

technique which roseanne used extensively of which is very famous for using a number of his novels which is a kind of random icing of language but the dream machine as a machine that came to brian person's mind when his walking down an avenue i believe in paris one day and was very taken and put under a kind of trance like state well the way that the light the sunlight came through the leaves on the trees and flickered again says iowa to close his eyes and walking felt that as flipper effect but i'm into a somewhat transcendental state and so he set about trying to make a new machine that would do this to happen so the dream machine is just that it's kind of up oh a humble the voice really it's a cylinder of paper with cut out shapes and that sits on a kind of a long cold record player on a turntable with a light bulb in the middle so and if we don't have it set up so that i can run at the

moment that people can see it and tom and our plans on the internet i think opinion what's make their home and castle that is they sit at a table in the face towards the light and the device spin slowly and you get an enclosure rising experiences flickering affected began principal put you into a slightly different state of mind and how do we also have a whole isn't a tortilla factory yeah absolutely and then i'm in i guess at some point it's fair to say that both price and ambrose very interested in the whole realm of human experience and cognition and we're interested in exploring that in ways that went far beyond what would normally be tolerated by mainstream society they don't look at a drug culture they looked at devices like this they look at what computing can do these chance operations so all kinds of ways of getting at experience in ways that work yoe well beyond

what would normally be embraced in a routine analysts as an academic setting for example were so me and i didn't hear you care for hansen's what about when a burqa losses from the third mind series which is out collaborative project that burrows and dice and produce together into the early sixties and over a period of time and the idea behind the third line is that when two minds work together a third one this created a second i would not in mind i'm dave made on a different clauses are many of them private backgrounds that included a grid that i'm tyce introduced with kind of carved out and wallpaper roller that he uses in a lot of his own individual works and so one of the examples that we have in the show is from the third minute of these clutches of the now black and white has a white great in the background and also had signed a larger sports following the front it's called another goal for the third mind so i would also add that we have a portfolio on display the full

seven deadly sins portfolio and i mention that not only because they printed images are fascinating and they were roses on tablets and cut out on things it is an end and exploded doors and things like that on but there's also a tax of anyone who hasn't read bros is taking their onerous an exhibition there's an opportunity to just sample some of his writing as well as look at the objects in images we have on display can't you pick one of these out and maybe describe it in greater length one of the seven deadly sins and describe it or perhaps read some of his words there's one that involves both loss in any dish as a very large surface and stones old all on and a lot of these to use pencils an icon of what looks like spray paint so that when adjacent to it has sort of a keyboard great shape a puzzle shape a skeleton and other forms of just been a stenciled on on the major to the news is to produce these so these individual

prayers so i don't know they're very hard to re kolodny of the suites the sugars the deadly apple's melting in the melt transmitting chief and russell and bone into a to some sweet me mr ha ha ha i'll even gathered and laura mention of the spencer museum of art at the university of kansas william s burroughs one hundred years of expanding consciousness will be on display at the spencer through february sixteenth this fighter gallery in lawrence is also marking the one hundredth birthday of william burroughs this month your exhibit of contemporary artists will open friday january thirty first curated by kate you are professor michael krieger i wanted to show that was contemporary artists influenced by or in some way there's something nice song or that it's actually

touched on things that he was interested in or the way that he's impacted our culture and it was a thing like that happening and i suppose after some of larson's area and there's all sorts from your name and chances are other places they're sending more to cinnamon it's needed to be filled for this girl's one hundred so all workers in the show is so chipper artists going to lean heavily on the people in this area is very aware of her own i was looking for things in the world that maybe showed this kind of influence of current culture or a kind of willingness to serve move beyond contemporary norms or loosen at nyu or have certain breeds whose literary travel experiences in yes i'm very excited about the show opens on january thirty first cyber cowering and then on the february

fourth there doing an artist hall a pale talk a farce in the show and chose sixteen artists in the show reminded has a piece that you did with burrows it'll be in the show and another are assertive for karen counted jamie warrant for playing tim doing and wilson cents store a really just a really covered pro collection of contemporary artists how did you go about finding people that were influenced by perot's work it wasn't hard at all at all it was unbelievable i think his influence is so pervasive and that we also really didn't seem that way it really sort of flying at such a high decibels of

influence that we don't always associate it and this is really kind of pervasive and culture of the bread of his time in and like a lot of the work in the show that the art that he made i think mosul is catching up with the words for impactful and irreverence in and pushing boundaries so if i were to go to their site or gallery and look at these pieces that were influenced by burrows maybe not knowing anything about the artists themselves or the pieces what would i see in common among them i think that that in some ways i think it'll be a little bit of a stretch for people to say all this is influenced by this i see this all those words there's gun or as i didn't know i didn't want war you know came out of him that way but i think you will see you know through the show

there is commonality in in these ideas of willingness to make work that's difficult challenging but not necessarily grotesque vulgar was mention that there's difficulty allen genes willingness in a way to loosen it was something i kind of fixated on to embrace the other really to embrace it as the magic in art that the artist in some ways as like a showman creating work and over jennifer leaning on magic or mysticism and why and i think that there but it's also the workers also but very hilarious some of that now in season two that's michael krieger who curated a show of contemporary artists influenced by william burroughs that show mummies are sitting ducks opens at the cider gallery in lawrence on friday january thirty first again next week would have marked

william burroughs one hundredth birthday the lawrence arts center has many activities marking the occasion as well as an exhibit creative observer find out more at their website lawrence arts center dot org kansas public radio has a creative observer catalog to give away thanks to the generosity of the lawrence arts center if you'd like a chance to win that have a lot of works on display go to our website to a pr that hey you got edu and click on ticket giveaways the kansas city public library has been hosting a very special exhibit this month star gazing features autograph portraits and sketches of dozens of celebrities done by you professor and anxious or kbr commentator john tibbets it's on display through the end of the month january thirty first at the main branch of the kansas city public library i visited with jon about the exhibit earlier this year these are all portraits i've done of celebrities of one stripe

or another that have been inscribed inside barbie three basic sections one section the filmmakers actors directors another section for musicians and composers and then another section for theater people literary people television people bristle at soul on campus oh my gosh people for like luciano pavarotti from the upper world to steven spielberg from the film world to jim henson and his muppet i have a greeting from miss piggy and kermit in the drawing i did of them by the way and so each of these paintings to me represents a moment that i'm very proud of because it was an encounter was a conversation with these people and in many cases a good feeling because the people like the paintings and had no objection to signing them and corrupt thirty years of this kind of become more than

that at this kind of thing the autograph was merely an excuse to talk to these people and to contribute something of my own to there were subtler i thought you know that the handwriting you get out of the old allies in handwriting is people not to mention some of the messages that are funny jim carrey scientists to john menees banks hit hello ah ah ah douglas fairbanks jr signed his identity composite image of him and his father douglas senior and so from left to right at the image goes from senior to junior so fairbanks jr sided descending from left to right and there's the humility of the junior aspect that did the list goes on and on and the many of the subjects were painters are painters themselves julie andrews whoopi goldberg gene hackman loves to write

and do sketches on the sets during those long waits he told me he has bound volumes a sketches from all the movies that he's made and get home love to see those and what the goldberg was already talking then about to be involved in children's books writing and illustrating children's books and i tell an anecdotal be a brochure with anecdotes and things but what i can tell you now feared a second job was with mary martin peter pan oh yeah well nurse what your friends and help us evacuate with that truck and she says oh john i do portraits to really yes i draw the backs of people's hamlets war today she said that what she was doing southern music on the stage many kids in many times and stage and she's behind the line of kids special in the door in the song says she has to know who everybody is but the summit by height but by the backs of their heads what she said so she got in

the habit of drawing them in presenting each of them kids with a portrait of the back of our heads and it made such a hit that she says she's has gone on now to doing this as gifts for her friends and that in bathrooms all across beverly hills she says you can probably find paintings of the backs of people's heads cut a reverse angle on the whole idea of portrait day you know so that's things like that are a lot of funny jim henson while he's talking his arm gestures was just always gesturing with his hand because that's his livelihood isn't it like oh man i says it's almost like terminus with us and immediately hansen's right hand snapped into kermit and so kermit talk to us for a while as kermit and then finally curtis of all i got to leave now because i'm not wearing any clothes and so back to

hanson knows what they needed to leave but that's not an exhibit and it was never signed that's tony bennett or los angeles under the story for los angeles magazine it's about tony bennett's painting season a very accomplished watercolors so the photo shoot consisted of him and different costume changes so i'm in the studio these ended up with costumes and there's hardly any time to talk so i just went to the dressing room so most of the time as ben it was back in the dressing room you stark naked so we're conducting the interview with a stark naked person but those circumstances were so bizarre that our time is so crunched that the drawing i did of him remained undecided vote in so much as i'd like to show it it's the painting that wasn't thank you so much jon thanks for your interest for sure that's done to vets his exhibit of autographed celebrity portraits is on display through the end of next week at the kansas city public library i'm j

mcintyre k pr present is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas