Kenneth Anger
23 March - 20 April 2013
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KENNETH ANGER
Icons
23 March – 20 April 2013
Sprüth Magers London is delighted to present an exhibition of work by
the iconic filmmaker and artist Kenneth Anger, in his second solo show
at the London gallery. Icons will bring together an archive of
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 Angeles. 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.
Kenneth Anger was born in Santa Monica, California. His most iconic
works include the classic Fireworks (1947), Eaux D’Artifice (1953),
Rabbit´s 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).Via:
www.spruethmagers.com
Via: http://artnews.org/spruethmagerslondon/?exi=37807&Kenneth_Anger
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