Apocalypse, William Seward Burroughs, Keith Haring (book)

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Apocalypse by William Seward Burroughs (Book) Paperback, Like New, bilingual French / English, 1993, 96 Pages, black and white and color, very small format. Illustrations by Keith Haring, Translated by Thierry Marignac, Publisher Dernier terrain vague.

William Seward Burroughs, 1914-1997 was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter and spoken word performer. A leading figure in the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered “one of the most politically influential, culturally influential and innovative artists of the 20th century”. His influence is considered to have affected a range of popular cultures as well as literature. Burroughs wrote 18 novels, 6 collections of short stories and 4 collections of essays. Five books have been published on his interviews and correspondence. He has also collaborated on projects and recordings with many artists and musicians, and made numerous appearances in films.

Keith Haring’s work often evokes paradox: life and death, religion and sexuality, heaven and hell, political activism and conformity.

In response to Burroughs’s free text, Haring appropriated and collaged symbols of mass consumerism, religion, art, and advertising upon which he created his iconic imagery in line with the school of thought. 1988 was the year Haring was diagnosed with AIDS, the effects of which had been present for years in the inner-city community of New York. Computers, sperm, devils, halos, light, and divine radiance show the complexity, struggle, torment, and illusory bliss of life at that time. Burroughs’s pages of text, printed on acetate film, are written and segmented words that accentuate the polemics of euphoria and fear. They relate to today’s world as much as they did to the time they were written in 1988.