David BRADSHAW & William S. BURROUGHS: Propagation

David BRADSHAW & William S. BURROUGHS: Propagation
January 18th - April 12th, 2025
Fort Myers, FL - 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 18th with a 6pm-8:30pm reception and lecture/discussion with internationally-renowned artist David Bradshaw. Running through April 12th, 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.