A journey
through the nightmare landscape of British artist Glen Baxter’s psyche, a world
where cowboys collide with Rothkos and Mondrians, symbolically loaded motifs
rear up and defeat interpretation, musketeers survey the smallest pizza, and
iambic pentameters are outlawed.
As a young
boy with a stammer, growing up in a grimy industrial town in the north of
England, Baxter discovered the world of surrealism before he had heard of André
Breton. He went on to art school where the works of De Chirico and Max Ernst
pointed the way to a lifelong love of absurdity. In 1974 he was invited by the
Poetry Project to read from his collected works at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bouwerie,
a pivotal moment for the young Englishman. Caught up in the delirium of New
York, he had discovered his natural home. A series of exhibitions held at the
Gotham Book Mart Gallery and many books and exhibits followed around the globe,
prompting Edward Gorey to pronounce: “Mr. Baxter betrays all the ominous symptoms
of genius.” You are invited to enter his world.
In Conversation with Bill Zavatsky:
Poets House,
Tuesday, October 15, 6-8 p.m. in Kray Hall, 10 River Terrace, New York, NY,
10282. 212-431-7920.
Presented in
conjunction with the Glen Baxter exhibition at Flowers Gallery, 529 W. 20th
Street, New York, NY 10011. T: 212-439-1700, Opens on
October 15; reception for the artist, Saturday, October 19, 5-7. Exhibition
runs to November 9, 2013.