From: The Western Lands, 2014. Chinese ink and acrylic glaze. 5" x 8"
AS AN “ANGEL-HEADED” adolescent, Hassett was among the last disciples of the Beats: the mid-century writers and artists whose work shared themes of spirituality, environmental awareness, and political dissidence. He left Venice Beach at the age of fifteen with his thumb pointing skyward. By the time he reached the classrooms of William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Hassett’s early life was already one of uncompromised nonconformity, intentional obscurity, and above all, radiant poetry. His life continues to embody Marcuse’ “Great Refusal”, and has found him variously in jail cells with infamous political dissidents; in the salons of Nepalese poets and photographers; deported from Morocco; arrested in Athens; in detention by British military in caves beneath the Rock of Gibraltar; at dinner tables with famed writers and filmmakers in Rome, Paris, Istanbul, NY, and LA; and on the sofas of Sandinistas, Chavistas, Panthers, and Weather Underground; at a porn theatre on Christmas Eve in New Jersey; in Copacabana, Bolivia on the Day of the Dead; in riots in Chile; at Marxist-Lacanian conferences in Berlin; in confinement in Frankfurt during the Chernobyl meltdown; in Beijing and Stockholm with Kung-Fu masters; at tango parlors in Buenos Aires; at temples in India; in Tahrir Square with a million Egyptians…
Hassett’s life has been an unceasing and courageous half-century of philosophical inquiry, civil disobedience, defiance of existing socio-political structures, flagrant rebellion, and pursuit of the Real, of which his many ink, marker, and glaze drawings, that combine Hassett’s powerful poetic voice with his equally powerful renderer’s hand, reflect.
-Erin Currier
ANTHONY HASSETT is a published poet and art critic; and has exhibited his visual art in Berlin, Buenos Aires, Los Angeles, New York City, Santa Fe, and Taos. He lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
From: The Western Lands, 2014. Chinese ink and acrylic glaze. 5" x 8"
From: The Western Lands, 2014. Chinese ink and acrylic glaze. 5" x 8"
From: The Western Lands, 2014. Chinese ink and acrylic glaze. 5" x 8"
From: The Western Lands, 2014. Chinese ink and acrylic glaze. 5" x 8"