Unique Collection of Beat Poet’s Original Art revealed in Exhibition video

Professor Hugo Frey and University Graduate, Dean Barker, take viewers on an exploration of the Gregory Corso exhibition in new video.

Viewers are guided through the exhibition which showcases the kaleidoscopic talent, wit and creativity of one of the Beat generation’s leading writer-artists.

The exhibition, curated by Professor Hugo Frey and Professor Dick Ellis, positions Gregory as a perennial artist, producing traditional drawings, illustrations, paintings, and more experimental interventions in the space where text and image meet.

Director of the Institute of Arts and Humanities, Hugo Frey, said: “The Exhibition shows a unique collection of the Beat poet’s original art and the wider importance of visual culture for the Beats.”

Co-curator, Prof Frey, said; “it brings together, for the first time, Corso’s poetic and visual outputs, showing how he was an accomplished creator across a very wide range of genres, poetic and visual.”

He added: “It needs to be noted that his achievement was uneven, for, as a drug addict and alcoholic, he was in constant need of cash to feed his habits, and often produced work to secure a quick cash sale. But even here, very often, he produced work possessing an often-endearing lightness of touch.”

“Corso was not the only Beat writer to turn to other creative genres,” said Prof Ellis. “Many other figures in the Beat movement turned to the visual arts to complement their poetic outputs – as part and parcel of their commitment to experimentally break down boundaries in every creative genre.”

Filmed and edited by Dean Barker, the video features voiceover from Hugo who delves into the first European solo show of the original works by Corso since the collected Beats show at Paris in 2016.

It also features some of his stunning, original work which includes a visual interpretation of his poem, Earth Egg, which is the centre point of the exhibition.

To view the video, click here.