Icons
Kenneth Anger
Sprüth Magers Berlin january 25 - february 23 2013
Sprüth Magers Berlin is delighted to present an exhibition of work by the iconic filmmaker and
artist Kenneth Anger, in his second solo show in Berlin. ICONS will bring together an archive of
film, photographs, scrapbooks, letters and memorabilia from Anger’s personal collection,
offering an insight into the unique vision of an artist widely acclaimed as a pioneering and
influential force in avant-garde cinema, whose influence extends through generations of film
makers, musicians and artists.
Making films continuously since the late 1940s, Kenneth Anger is considered one of the most
original filmmakers of American cinema and a countercultural icon. His groundbreaking body
of work has had a profound effect on mainstream film directors such as George Lucas and
Martin Scorsese, particularly in the application of a cross-cutting editing style and the integral
use of pop music. Furthermore, post-war popular visual culture, from queer iconography to
MTV, owes a debt to Anger‘s art. In particular, Anger has been cited as a major influence on
the aesthetic of music video, with its emphasis on dream sequence and elevated affect, and
his own soundtracks have featured collaborations with Mick Jagger and Jimmy Page, amongst
others.
The archive ICONS will be exhibited across two rooms, painted midnight blue and crimson
red, to replicate the way in which the collection was on display at Kenneth Anger’s home in
Los Angles. An occupation with Hollywood began as a child when Anger would visit film sets
with his costume designer grandmother. Ranging from tabloid and magazine covers, to
posters and illustrations, the archival documents on show, gathered over many decades,
reveal the extent of Anger’s fascination with the industry and the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Centered on figures such as Greta Garbo and Rudolph Valentino, the memorabilia evokes the
world of the classic studios and the mystique of its stars, and reveals the inspiration and
source material behind the filmmaker’s infamous celebrity gossip books Hollywood Babylon ,
published in 1975 and 1984. Delving into Hollywood scandal and excess, these publications,
like his films, serve to highlight the very ambivalent dynamic between the cinema audience
and the stars they worship and destroy. Here, images from contemporary pop culture and of
Hollywood stars are taken out their usual structures of representation and put into a new,
perverse context intended to disturb customary modes of perception.
In addition to works from the archive, the exhibition will include the recent Airship series
(2010 - 2012), consisting of three short films. These works, each between two and three
minutes in length, are based on newsreel footage of dirigibles hovering in the sky. The series
demonstrates a characteristic fusion of magick, symbolism, mystery and myth. Using a nonnarrative
style, Anger’s abstract films are imbued with a baroque splendor stemming from
the heightened sensuality of an opulent use of colour and mystic imagery. In Airship , the
heavy colour ribbing around the outline of the aircraft imbues the film with an eerie,
supernatural quality.
Kenneth Anger was born in Santa Monica, California. His most iconic works include the classic
Fireworks (1947), Eaux D’Artifice (1953), RabbitŽs Moon (1950-1973), Inauguration of the
Pleasure Dome (1954-66), Scorpio Rising (1964), Invocation of My Demon Brother (1969) and
Lucifer Rising (1970 81). His work has been featured at the Whitney Biennial 2006, P.S.1
Contemporary Art Centre, New York in 2009 and the Athens Biennial 2009. The archival
material ICONS was previously exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (13
November 2011 27 February 2012).
Sprüth Magers Berlin will also be concurrently presenting the solo exhibitions La Société du
Spectacle by Astrid Klein and Bathroom Sink, Etc. by Analia Saban.
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