William S. Burroughs slightly zonked, his dooryard-garden wall Villa Muneria, looking at me suspiciously, "Who are you an Agent for?" He "traced back along word-lines," cut-up technique of anti-brainwash language analysis, inquiring sources of my mental conditioning, perhaps Liberal Professor Trilling, perhaps "a trust of giant insects from another Galaxy" conspiring to make Nova Conditions on our Planet, exterminate HomoSap the Human animal so another life-form, virus invasion, move in on the Turf, such like poetries on his mind. Timothy Leary visited from Harvard, we took small amount of psilocybin, Bill shut himself inside his garden gate with a wave of his hand, allergic, paranoia season. Peter Orlovsky departed alone, ship to Athens, Bill employed for Scandinavia L.S.O. Conference leaving Gregory Corso and myself waving him goodbye
1961, printed 1995
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image: 28.26 × 41.59 cm (11 1/8 × 16 3/8 in.) sheet: 40.48 × 50.48 cm (15 15/16 × 19 7/8 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Gary S. Davis
Accession Number
2010.137.28
About the Artist
Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997), born in Newark, New Jersey, emerged as a multifaceted figure in American culture, best known as a Beat Generation poet but also a prolific visual artist whose photographs, drawings, and prints captured the raw energy of his era. His early life offers little documentation on artistic training, though he attended Columbia University in the 1940s, where he formed connectio...