William S. Burroughs profoundly influenced literature, media and generations of youth movements. In incisive essays and fiction, multimedia and visual art, he worked to expose political, economic and cultural control systems. Burroughs graduated from Harvard in anthropology. He mentored Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg in New York, where they jointly made a pact to change the course of literature. Burroughs explored relationships between word and image and, parallel to his literary output, made photography and collage. Artist Brion Gysin introduced him to the powerful ‘cut-up’ method, leading to influential collaborations between the two. When Gysin died in 1986, Burroughs honoured his friend by producing hundreds of paintings, collages and shotgun art.

In 1988, October Gallery held his first solo exhibition outside the United States and in 1990 presented Two Collaborations: Keith Haring and William S. Burroughs. In 2012, All out of time and into space featured his space age art. In 2015, Can you all hear me? curated by Kathelin Gray, also showed artists inspired by Burroughs: Liliane Lijn, Genesis P. Orridge, Brion Gysin, Shezad Dawood and Cerith Wyn Evans. Burroughs’ work has been featured in major international galleries and museums including ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; Deichtorhallen Hamburg: Falckenberg Collection, Hamburg, Germany; Kunsthalle Wien (Vienna), Austria; Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA; New Museum, New York, USA; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland; Photographers’ Gallery, London, UK; Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles, USA; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA. His work is in major collections such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA; the British Museum, London, UK; Kochi Museum of Art, Kochi, Japan; and ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany.