Kenneth Anger

(American, 1927–2023)

Kenneth Anger is a contemporary American avant-garde filmmaker. As an important figure in underground cinema known for his fascination with the occult, Anger’s short films are celebrated for their luscious aesthetics combining surrealist imagery, homoeroticism, and intense psychodrama. “I wanted to be an individual artist making film,” he has said of his singular vision. Anger has served as an influence to countless artists and achieved a cult status, with admirers such as the photographer David LaChapelle and gallerist Jeffrey Deitch crediting him as the pioneering inventor of gay cinema, independent cinema, and the music video. Born in Santa Monica, CA on February 3, 1927, he began creating short films at the age of 10 and by 1947 released his first major work, Fireworks, which led to his arrest on obscenity charges for the film’s homosexual content. Undaunted, he traveled and continued to have a prolific output through the early 1980s, with some of his most famous works being Hollywood Babylon (1965) and Lucifer Rising (1972). In 2009 a retrospective held at MoMA P.S.1 in Queens sparked a renewed interest in the filmmaker’s work, while he once again resumed producing shorts. Today, Anger is now included in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, among others.