Above, “Opium” by Bob Dylan.

A new series of drawings and paintings by Bob Dylan that form a visual diary of his travels in Asia last spring will be on display at the Gagosian Gallery in New York beginning September 20. The gallery says that this will the first time ever that Dylan’s art will be exhibited in NYC:

From The New York Times ArtBeat blog:

The gallery said in a news release that Mr. Dylan’s works would offer “firsthand depictions of people, street scenes, architecture and landscape” with evocative titles like “Mae Ling,” “Cockfight,” “The Bridge” and “Hunan Province.” The release added: “Conversely, there are more cryptic paintings often of personalities and situations, such as ‘Big Brother’ and ‘Opium,’ or ‘LeBelle Cascade,’ which looks like a riff on Manet’s ‘Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe’ but which is, in fact, a scenographic tourist photo-opportunity in a Tokyo amusement arcade.” Mr. Dylan’s paintings have previously been shown in Chemnitz, Germany (where the exhibition “The Drawn Blank Series” opened in 2007), the Statens Museum in Copenhagen (where his “Brazil Series” was shown in 2008) and any rec room where the cover of his “Self Portrait” album has been prominently displayed.