Dreamweapon: The Art and Life of Angus MacLise 1938–1979 May 10th–29th, 2011

Boo-Hooray presents the rare works of Angus MacLise (1938–79), American artist, poet, percussionist, and composer active in New York, San Francisco, Paris, London and Kathmandu in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

The exhibition series will unfold with an overview of poetry, artwork, and publications in Chelsea, an audio installation in Chinatown, and a night of film screenings at Anthology Film Archives.

“Angus MacLise was the Velvet Underground's first drummer. He withdrew when he found out that at a paying job he had to start and stop playing when told to. No one told Angus to stop playing. So the job of a working musician was impossible for Angus, and he taught us all a lesson about purity of spirit. Angus was a dream percussionist. A dream person.” – Lou Reed

DREAMWEAPON is curated by Johan Kugelberg and Will Cameron.

Opening party: Tuesday, May 10th, 2011

Presented at: Boo-Hooray 521 W 23rd Street NY, NY, 10011

Screening- Angus MacLise and the New York Underground

Anthology Film Archives will host an evening of film works by Ira Cohen and Piero Heliczer. At the center of this event is the underground cinema classic, The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda (Dir. Ira Cohen, 1968), showcasing the music of Angus MacLise and the Universal Mutant Repertory Company.

The program will include works by Heliczer starring MacLise, Marty Topp portapak video from the Ira Cohen Jefferson St. loft (1971-72), and the worldwide premiere of a new film, Heavy Canon (Dir. Ira Cohen, 1968/2011), comprised of unseen 16mm footage shot in Cohen’s Mylar Chamber and scored with tapes from the Angus MacLise archive.

About Angus MacLise:

Angus MacLise (1938, Bridgeport, CT – 1979, Kathmandu, Nepal), was an American artist, poet, percussionist, and composer active in New York, San Francisco, Paris, London and Kathmandu in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Though best known as the original drummer of the Velvet Underground, MacLise produced a formidable canon of recorded music, performance, poetry, drawings, plays, and limited edition artist’s books.

The beginnings of MacLise’s life in art can be charted back to New York City, 1961, when he began collaborating with various intersecting art groups and individuals such as Fluxus (George Maciunas, Yoko Ono), Theatre of the Ridiculous, and the cinema and theatre of Jack Smith.

As a musician and composer, MacLise is known as a founding member, with John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Lou Reed, of The Velvet Underground; a participant, with Tony Conrad, Marian Zazeela, Terry Riley and Billy Name in La Monte Young's avant-garde music ensemble Theatre of Eternal Music; and as a soundtrack composer, participant, and actor in noted underground films by filmmakers Ron Rice, Jerry Joffen, and Ira Cohen.

As a poet, MacLise began collaborating with high school friend Piero Heliczer in the late 50’s and formed the Dead Language Press in Paris, widely acknowledged as one of the most significant small artist book presses of the 20th Century. Together with his wife, artist and underground press illustrator Hetty MacLise, he edited issue no.9 of the innovative magazine-in-a-box, Aspen, which is considered a hallmark of American publishing.

While residing in Nepal, he formed the Bardo Matrix/Dreamweapon Press with Ira Cohen, publishing poetry in limited editions on handmade rice paper. Their press published poets such as Paul Bowles, Charles Henri Ford, and Diane Di Prima. During this time, MacLise also published his own works and edited the poetry magazine Ting Pa.

On Summer Solstice 1979, MacLise met his untimely death from hypoglycemia in Kathmandu, and was cremated in the fashion of Tibetan Buddhist funerary rites. Outside of an ever-shrinking nucleus of "Downtown" insiders, MacLise’s legacy has landed firmly in obscurity.