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Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

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William S. Burroughs

Sloth, from the portfolio The Seven Deadly Sins

1991

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  • Artist William S. Burroughs (American, 1914–1997)
  • Title Sloth, from the portfolio The Seven Deadly Sins
  • Date 1991
  • Medium Screenprint
  • Edition description 29/90
  • Dimensions unframed |
    framed | 46 7/8 x 32 7/8 x 2 in.
  • Credit line University purchase, Art Acquisition Fund, 1995
  • Object number WU 1995.16.01 b

4/13/1995
Shearburn Fine Art, William

Inscription Textual component: All the Seven Deadly Sins involve a degradation of / the human image to a subhuman level: Gluttony that / eats itself, eats food off the floor and turns men into / swine . . . the cold metallic Avarice of a computer . . . / Lust that wallows in carrion, naked, loveless, repulsive / Need . . . the Pride of viriously closed minds, Pride of / power, Pride in the ability to make hands sweat and / shake, to inspire Fear . . . Envy that corrodes like acid, / eating away everything but a consuming, bitter hatred / for anything or anyone who is alive . . . Anger that / blights and kills, like the ravages of some loathsome / disease that eats the human image to galvanized spasms, / to a dead insect hunger and protoplasmic Lust, to barren, / slavering rage, like Pavlov’s dogs. Ugliness is beauty / disgraced. Sin is the degradation of a natural instinct.

Inscription verso not examined

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