David BRADSHAW & William S. BURROUGHS: Propagation

January 18^th –April 12^th, 2025

Opening reception from 6-8:30pm on Saturday, January 18^th – with an ArtSPEAK@FSW lecture/Q.&A. by David BRADSHAW at 6:30pm.

The Bob Rauschenberg Gallery at Florida Southwestern State College (FSW) is honored to announce our forthcoming “David BRADSHAW & William S. BURROUGHS: Propagation” exhibition, opening on Saturday, January 18^th with a 6pm-8:30pm reception and lecture/discussion with internationally-renowned artist David Bradshaw.  Running through April 12^th, 2025, this will be the final show until major Humanities Hall/Building L renovations temporarily relocate our exhibition programming to the new Bob Rauschenberg Gallery Annex space in Building J – Library Lobby (J-118) for a twenty-month to two-year period. Following the recent success of the “William S. BURROUGHS & Laurie ANDERSON: Language is a Virus” exhibition, we will once again world premiere previously unseen original artworks by the legendary, late and highly-influential Beat Generation author/artist – this time, pairing Burroughs with his longtime friend and frequent collaborator David Bradshaw.

Often associated with the circulation of harmful messages, dangerous ideologies or even viruses, the term “propagation” (our show title) simply denotes “the act or process of spreading.” The propagation of concepts, form and self are core themes, but so are the challenging of societal norms and the confronting of personal demons. Examining how ideas are disseminated and transformed through various mediums, the featured works in “David BRADSHAW & William S. BURROUGHS: Propagation” demonstrate how these artists utilized unconventional tools (including firearms, dynamite and a bowling-ball canon) and chance-based operations to generate new artistic forms – subverting conventional studio practice and standard artmaking processes. According to David Bradshaw: “In dynamite blasting, ‘propagation’ is atechnical term for the sympathetic detonation of powder out of sequence, resulting in an ‘instant’ (or the accidental total charge mass of explosives firing at one instance when ‘timed’/synchronized detonations were intended).” As the artist continues, “a ‘propagation hazard’ is an occurrence best avoided.” Control and predictability are the goal when handling dynamite, but, as Bradshaw and Burroughs make evident here, not always when making art.

William S. Burroughs (1914-1997), was a key, frequently controversial figure of the Beat Generation. Born into wealth and Harvard-educated, Burroughs led an otherwise unconventional life and explored themes of addiction, consciousness, social control and the darkest aspects of the human condition through his widely-influential books including ‘Junkie’ (1953), ‘Naked Lunch’ (1959), ‘The Nova Trilogy’ (1961–1964), ‘Cities of the Red Night’ (1981), ‘The Place of Dead Roads’ (1983), ‘The Cat Inside’ (1986) and many more. Burroughs’ novels, novellas and short story collections shocked audiences with their explicit content, dark humor and fractured narratives (regularly employing his “cut-up method”), often reflecting his experiences on the fringes of society. Elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France, Jack Kerouac called William Burroughs the “greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift,” while Norman Mailer declared him “the only American writer who may be conceivably possessed by genius”.

David Bradshaw (b. 1944) is a Manhattan-born, Vermont-based painter, sculptor and sharpshooter best known for his use of firearms and high explosives to create graphic art and large-scale sculpture. Profoundly and often elegantly reshaping metal through the brute and expansive force of controlled explosions and munitions, Bradshaw studied at the Hartford Art School and served admirably in the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960’s, before relocating to New York City. While participating in performance works of notable choreographers/dancers including Trisha Brown, Deborah Hay, Simone Forti and Steve Paxton, Bradshaw befriended Robert Rauschenberg. Invited by Rauschenberg as one of the first artists to inaugurate his printmaking atelier Untitled Press through months-long residencies on Captiva Island in 1972-3. Bradshaw screenprinted the first of two “target” editions at Bob’s Beach House, but the Florida heat and humidity made it impossible to finish his second print series without assistance from Adolph Rischner at Styria Studios. When Bradshaw completed the shooting, hand-annotating and signing of his “Bullet Holes” (1972-73), James Elliott at the Wadsworth Athenaeum insisted the works be shown in Hartford. A telephone call between Elliot, Bradshaw and Rauschenberg led to expanding the show to include all Untitled Press artists. So, Bradshaw, with fellow Civil Rights activist/partner James Brown drove up the works of artist-friends Cy Twombly, Robert Whitman, Hisachika Takahashi, Robert Petersen, Brice Marden, Bradshaw and Rauschenberg from Florida to New York.

During this period, Bradshaw’s loft was a dance studio for Deborah Hay by day and evening, and a painting studio by night. A 1969 canvas required suspension from the ceiling. Measuring 9’x29′, it would take two to hang. According to Bradshaw, “Rauschenberg showed up with a fifth of Jack Daniels to celebrate and install the work as Deborah looked on.” The arc of suspended canvas gave the piece its name: Catenary. Yet, dynamite was around the corner. As the artist recalls: “While Deborah Hay was in Japan, I drove to Vermont to pay her brother a visit. A professor of writing and poetry at Goddard College, Barry Goldensohn and family lived in a brick farmhouse on the Winooski River. Spring of 1969, heavy snow, river swelling behind a dam of deadfall – trees and organic debris carried downstream. Trip to the hardware store for a case of dynamite, a roll of safety fuse and box of blasting caps. The deadfall dam became my dynamite art.” As he continued, “The art world was ablaze in possessions of conceptualism, process, minimalism, materiality, commodification, site specificity. But, explosion: expansion, vacuum, implosion, equilibrium – try selling that or hanging it on the wall.”

So, Bob Rauschenberg suggested and supplied Bradshaw with a 16mm Arriflex movie camera he had bought to document a Merce Cunningham Dance Co. world tour, but had never used. A few subsequent dynamite works were filmed, and, as the artist remembers: “William Burroughs called one night, saying he wanted to see the film. So, I roll the film of myself bundling sticks of nitroglycerine dynamite… handing it to Steve Paxton, who lights the fuse and throws the bundle into the Winooski River.” As David Bradshaw continues, “Following the impressive river eruption, the water gradually smooths over, as though nothing happened. So, I then reversed the projector (screening the “implosion”), while Burroughs sat speechless, still and attentive throughout.”

First introduced in the Broadway loft of mutual friend and painter, David Prentice, in 1967 and later having a significant influence on the development and direction of William Burroughs’ own visual art practice, David Bradshaw collaborated extensively and regularly with Burroughs from 1981 until his death in 1997. According to Bradshaw, “Shooting five paper targets we titled ‘Camouflage Man’ on Burrough’s February 5th, 67th birthday was the start of a performance relationship that carried until two months prior to William’s death on the 2nd of August 1997.” As one of the pallbearers at Burroughs’ funeral, Bradshaw placed Burroughs’ favorite pistol – a loaded snubnose .38 Special – by his hand prior to burial. Additional collaborations included a series of cut-out steel “Tin Man” silhouettes, dozens of canvas and paper target paintings and a book/portfolio of prints published by the University of South Florida’s Graphicstudio titled “Propagation Hazard” (1993) – all shot and signed by both artists. Featured in the “Ports of Entry” retrospective of William S. Burroughs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1996, David Bradshaw’s work is in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Art/Washington D.C., Smithsonian Institution, Walker Art Center, Whitney Museum of American Art and Stedelijk Museum/Amsterdam and remains in the private/estate collections of Robert Rauschenberg and William S. Burroughs.

“David BRADSHAW & William S. BURROUGHS: Propagation” promises to be a thought-provoking and deeply-engaging exhibition that will challenge viewers’ perceptions of art, its relationship to life, and the enduring power of creative collaboration.