Until November 8, the MSVU Art Gallery is showing 116 framed photos taken by 1950s American Beat poet, Shambhala Buddhist and cultural visionary Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997). MSVU Gallery director Ingrid Jenkner explains that, along with his poetics, Ginsberg practiced photography on a daily basis while he traveled the world. Many photos are candid shots of his friends, literary giants like Jack Kerouac and Beat poets like Neal Cassady.
The line from one of his lectures on poetics and photography, “We are continually exposed to the flashbulbs of death” reveals Ginsberg’s spiritual and philosophical preoccupations, which we can also see in this self-portrait taken in Seattle in 1991.
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This article appears in Sep 3-9, 2015.