Overview
Reissued for the first time in decades, an underground classic of street photography documenting San Francisco’s late 1970s Halloween celebrations: the macabre and irreverent “Mardi Gras of the West” Originally published in limited quantities in 1981, Halloween: A Fantasy in Three Acts collects photographs taken by Ken Werner at San Francisco’s adult Halloween celebrations from 1976 to 1980, assembling a visual narrative of American consciousness and popular culture as seen through lenses of queerness, black humor, and the macabre. Once touted as the “Mardi Gras of the West,” the raunchy, mostly open-air nighttime costume parties documented by Werner were hugely popular events organized primarily by LGBT and sex worker advocates, attracting tens of thousands of curious attendees as well as conservative ire from around the nation. Reissued for the first time in decades, this underground classic explores a bacchanalia worthy of the pagan and occult roots of the Halloween ritual—a magical dream/nightmare-land of terror and joy, with uninhibited celebrants reveling in stunning self-made guises that combine cartoon logic, sexual extravagance, and a highly irreverent take on American mythologies.
Full Product Details
Author: Ken Werner
Publisher: Anthology Editions
Imprint: Anthology Editions
ISBN: 9781944860639
ISBN 10: 1944860630
Pages: 65
Publication Date: 10 September 2024
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.
Reviews
""Souls are now immortalized in an absolutely gorgeous reissue of Halloween by Anthology Editions, which will have you giggling through tears at the brilliant ingenuity and pagan energy of local “maskers” showing off their only-in-SF spirit."" - 48 Hills, 2024 ""It’s easy to see why Halloween developed such a cult following. Its rarity was one thing, but the subject matter — and the artistry with which Werner captured the creative, raunchy and irreverent energy of those nights — is immediately compelling."" - KQED, 2024
Author Information
Ken Werner is a professional photographer who currently splits his time between the US and Australia. His photographs have been featured in publications such as Camera 35, Modern Photography, and Asahi Camera, and can also be found in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. For many years he lived in San Francisco, where he created and served as Editorial Director of the award-winning magazine Darkroom Photography, providing an influential resource to the development of traditional film photography as craft and art form. He has also worked as a commercial travel photographer, producing photo essays for in-flight magazines and hotel chains, and served as Consultant for the radical Bay Area publisher RE/SEARCH.
