Kenneth Anger at the Palais de Tokyo – A Shaded View on Fashion

Dear Shaded Viewers,

The Man We Want to Hang by Kenneth Anger

THe Man We Want to Hang -The Art of Aleister Crowley

Kenneth Anger signing an autograph. His energy and amazing good looks had me wondering if this 81 year old icon had made some kind of pact with the Devil that would keep him forever vibrant and young.

The reason for Kenneth Anger’s rare appearance in Paris’s Palais de Tokyo is a film retrospective at the Pompidou Center and to attend the opening of Aleister Crowley’s La Chambre des Cauchemars. Those of you familiar with the work of Kenneth Anger know that Aleister Crowley inspired Kenneth’s Anger’s artistic life. Tonight he screened one film, The Man We Want to Hang, a visual record of the Aleister Crowley gallery show at October in London. The film was made in 2002 music by Anatol Liadov.

The second film was Invocation of My Demon Brother and was inspired by Crowley’s idea of magic, where Kenneth Anger turned some of Crowley’s ideas into cinema. The music is by Mick Jagger.

Aleister Crowley’s La Chambre des Cauchemars

Kenneth Anger – The man we want to hang. Pt. 1
PART 1:
Works by the late Occultist, Aleister Crowley. Directed by Kenneth Anger. Music By Anatol Liadov. 2002.

Kenneth Anger – The man we want to hang. Pt 2.

The invocation of My Demon Brother is a collage of different ideas based on Crowley’s paintings that were destroyed by the Nazi’s. Kenneth spoke about the Swastika as an ancient symbol chosen by Hitler and twisted by Crowley. THe Swastika was a holy symbol even thought it was taken through hell. The Swastika before negative Nazi connotations stood as a symbol of immutable good luck used by Hindu’s, Buddhists, and Jains for thousands of years. Kenneth Anger pointed out that the Nazi Regime only lasted 12 years. “A flic of Shiva’s eyelash.” “I play around a little with my collection of old Nazi flags but it has come to the end of the line for me because I just finished a 36 minute film on the end of Hitler youth, Ich will, which will be shown at the Centre Pompidou tomorrow night as an avant-premiere.

Kenneth Anger’s revealed that his family comes from Germany in the region of Berlin and Prussia, although he’s part of the American side. There are still about 30 Anger cousins living in and around Berlin. Anger in German means the field or meadow where the knights held their evening macho ritual of jousting. Anger said he likes the double meaning of his name, on the one hand it means peaceful meadow and on the other a furious man.

Invocation of my Demon Brother and Kenneth introducing his films.