Kenneth Anger literally burst onto the American art landscape in 1947 with his first film. Fireworks was a 15-minute tour de force, in which America’s post-war subconscious was made luminous and projected on a screen. The film established Anger as the Godfather of American avant-garde film. Over the next three decades Anger would maintain his maverick reputation by independently creating his renowned Magick Lantern Cycle, a series of densely poetic films still influential today.

Filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, and Todd Haynes have named him as an inspiration to their own work. Anger, who grew up a child star in Hollywood, has also published two books, Hollywood Babylon, and Hollywood Babylon II, which expose the seamier side of Tinseltown.

SITE Santa Fe’s Art & Culture series is partially supported by The Brown Foundation, Inc., Houston, Lannan Foundation, Madelin Coit and Alan Levin, Bobbie Foshay-Miller and Chuck Miller, and Marlene Nathan Meyerson.