Besides working as a guitarist he has frequently produced sound, performance and visual art independently of Sonic Youth. He has released over fifty solo, band and collaborative recordings, and a dozen books, including travel journals, poetry and artists' books. His work has been exhibited at numerous galleries and museums, including the Hayward Gallery in London, the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art, NSCAD in Halifax, the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Mercer Union in Toronto, and Printed Matter, Artspace and White Columns in New York. In 2017 there was a large overview exhibition in Menen, Belgium about his visual arts.