Exhibition: OCC.0031
Basil King: Between Painting + Writing
September 2 – December 24, 2016
Better known as a poet and illustrator of other poets’ works, Brooklyn resident Basil King exemplifies the intentional independence and purposeful interdisciplinary qualities that Black Mountain College is famous for. And just like Black Mountain College’s legacy, King’s career defies easy categorization. This is most apparently true in the fact that he works as both a painter and a writer and is prolific in both disciplines. Arriving in the United States from England in 1947, he studied painting at Black Mountain College with Joseph Fiore and Esteban Vicente and poetry with Charles Olson and Robert Creeley. He then moved to New York and has been an important member of the New York poetry and art scene ever since. Under recognized because of his independence and interdisciplinary work, a 2012 documentary on his life, Basil King: Mirage, by Nicole Peyrafitte and Miles Joris-Peyrafitte has gone some way to remedy this. Between Painting and Writing aimed to be an important step in giving King’s career proper attention by exhibiting his poetry, his illustrations and his paintings as a unified body of work. A chapbook of Basil King’s work was published concurrently with the exhibition.
Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (56 Broadway)