Kenneth Anger's 'Icons'

MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The New Zealand Film Archive and Alice L Hutchison
present
Kenneth Angers ‘Icons’
A collection of still images from American underground film legend Kenneth Anger.

The New Zealand Film Archive and Alice L Hutchison are pleased to present
Kenneth Anger’s ‘Icons’; a collection of still images from American underground film legend Kenneth Anger.

For the past 40 years Kenneth Anger’s name has been a touchstone for independent film making. In films such as Scorpio Rising (1963) Anger presented a gloriously kaleidoscopic vision of glamour and decadence in the 20th Century.

His films have featured appearances by a remarkable number of musical and popular figures including Anaïs Nin, Marianne Faithfull and Mick Jagger. Artists and filmmakers from Andy Warhol to Martin Scorsese have drawn upon his use of pastiche and improvisation, and his influence has extended through cinema, contemporary art and the music industry.

New Zealander Alice Hutchison is the author of Kenneth Anger: A Demonic Visionary. The book is the product of a close working relationship between Hutchison and Anger over the past four years and is the first comprehensive and fully-illustrated monograph on the filmmaker.

In ‘Icons’ Hutchison presents an exhibition of stills from Anger’s 1969 film Invocation of My Demon Brother. A fusion of magick, symbolism, myth, mystery and vision, Invocation of My Demon Brother was designed ‘to cast a spell on the audience’, as Anger has said, "an attack on the sensorium." Completed and edited in London from material mostly shot in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, it features a soundtrack by Mick Jagger and an appearance by Anger himself as Magus. The exhibition also features a collection of original posters, photographs and ephemera reproduced in the book from Hutchison's collection, much of which given to her by Anger from his personal collection.

On April 6 and 13 the Film Archive will also present a screening of Kenneth Anger’s Magick Lantern Cycle, nine of Anger’s earliest films. This rarely seen collection includes Fireworks (1947) which he made in Los Angeles as a teenager, Invocation of My Demon Brother and Lucifer Rising (1969-1981).

Alice Hutchison is a curator and writer who has been based until recently in Los Angeles.. Hutchison will be giving a talk on Angers work in relation to radical underground film art, and limited copies of her book Kenneth Anger: A Demonic Visionary, will be available for sale at the Film Archive.

Alice Hutchison and The New Zealand Film Archive will also present the southern hemisphere premiere of Angers most recent film Mouse Heaven (2004). Anger, now in his late 70s and living in Los Angeles has personally provided the prototype DVD for the New Zealand screening, and is hoping to make a personal appearance in April or May.

Kenneth Anger’s ‘Icons’
New Zealand Film Archive
Pelorus Trust mediagallery
March 30 - May 20 2006

Kenneth Anger’s Magick Lantern Cycle
April 6 & 13
New Zealand Film Archive

ENDS

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