SECTION TWELVE
ART PAGE
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COLUMN
SIXTY-ONE, JULY 1, 2001
(Copyright © 2001 Al Aronowitz)
BASIL KING
BASIL KING
was born in the East End of London in 1935 and came to the U.S. in 1947.
At 16, he entered Black Mountain College, where he studied painting and writing.
In 1958 he married Martha and settled in New York to paint. During this time he
made art for Yugen and Kultur magazines, and for books by LeRoi Jones
(Amiri Baraka), Allen Ginsberg, and others.
In the early 1970s, with two partners, he founded Mulch magazine; Mulch Press
subsequently published six books, including Paul Blackburn's Piere Vidal and Allen
Ginsberg's Visions of the Great Rememberer, both with art by King.
In the 1980s King painted images from playing cards, baseball, trees,
and portraits of artists and poets and began writing regularly.
In 1992, he began his long documentary prose/poem/media work, Mirage.
Mirage paintings, watercolors, and pastels were exhibited for the first time at
Gotham Book Mart in 1994, where King also read from his texts. Since that time,
King combined reading with showing slides of his own art and others.
King's visual art is in the collections of the New York Public Library, Yale
University, the late Morton & Lita Hornick, Wadsworth Athenaeum, Grand Valley
State College, University of Kansas Museum of Art, David and Becky Starobin,
State University of New York at Buffalo, the Gladstone Museum of Baseball Art, and
Tom Seaver.
Mirage performances have been presented in Prague, Ljubljana (Slovenia),
Groznjan (Croatia), Duino (Italy), Dartington College (U.K.), and Cody's Bookstore,
Berkeley, California.
Text from Mirage has been published in Otis Rush (Australia), Boxkite
(Australia), House Organ, and First Intensity. The Spring 2001 issue of Poetry/New
York features a cover, portfolio of art, and a section from Warp Spasm, "Karla Faye".
Another section from Warp Spasm, "Identity", will appear next fall in First Intensity.
King's other Mirage books include The Complete Miniatures and Devotions (Stop Press,
London). Both combine text and art. Warp Spasm in its entirety is on the Fall 2001 list of
Spuyten Duyvil, New York. Additional work is forthcoming in Lung (contact polear@hotmail.com).
Basil King's painting for the cover of LITTLE TALES OF FAMILY AND WAR by his wife, Martha King
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