‘Poet, editor, filmmaker, actor, child star in Mussolini’s Italy, founder of The Dead Language Press and of the Paris Filmmakers Cooperative, Piero Heliczer (1937–1993) was an essential yet secret agent of the 1960s and ’70s counterculture. In the course of his nomadic existence in Rome, New York, London, Amsterdam, Paris, and Préaux-du-Perche, where he spent the last few years of his life, he met and worked with a constellation of avant-garde writers, forged friendships with figures from the Beat Generation and the British Poetry Revival as well as the New York art scene. At the crossroads of many underground experiences, Heliczer’s name appears in books dedicated to the artists and poets he collaborated with during his lifetime—names by the likes of Gregory Corso, Barbara Rubin, Andy Warhol, Jack Smith, Ira Cohen, or The Velvet Underground, a band he participated in creating with his friend Angus MacLise.
‘This myth obscures the fact that Piero Heliczer was first and foremost a poet. Today, this part of his work is overlooked; it is all the more difficult to encounter because Heliczer himself never collected it. So it was scattered, or lost, in the course of his wanderings. Heliczer favored the circulation of his works rather than their archiving: he was committed to the production of mobile forms—flyers, broadsides, and other ephemera—disseminated his verses in magazines, and preferred public readings and performances to the finished form of the book.
‘The present volume gathers a significant number of Heliczer’s poetic works through facsimile reproduction of his contributions to more than thirty periodicals—mostly stemming from poets’ presses or universities—published between 1958 and 1979. This collection isn’t “complete”—but it makes available again poems that, in some cases, never circulated after their initial publication. Piero Heliczer: Poems and Documents seeks to complement the anthology, A Purchase in the White Botanica: The Collected Poetry of Piero Heliczer, edited by Anselm Hollo and Gerard Malanga (New York: Granary Books, 2001), and also to circulate his work among a larger audience, thanks to its first translation into French.’ — After8 Books
Buy ‘Poems & Documents’
PIERO HELICZER WEB PAGE
Piero Heliczer @ The Allen Ginsberg Project
the invisible father – a piero heliczer documentary film
After8 Books
Sample pages
Who is Piero Heliczer?
by Wynn Heliczer
Biography
‘Piero Heliczer was born in Rome to a German mother and a Polish father. His film career began at the age of four when, ironically, he won a contest for the “most typical-looking Italian child.” Acting under the name “Pier Giorgio Heliczer,” he played minor roles in Italian films as a child, including, by his own account, an uncredited supporting role in Vittorio De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief (1948). When Heliczer was seven years old, his father, a doctor and resistance fighter, was tortured and executed by the Gestapo. The boy emigrated with his mother to the United States in the 1940s, graduated high school at the top of his class, and enrolled at Harvard in 1955. After two years he dropped out and moved to Paris, where he co-founded the Dead Language Press with his high school friend, the poet and composer Angus MacLise.
‘Heliczer published “alternative” authors, including himself, MacLise, the Finnish poet and translator Anselm Hollo, the Beat poet Gregory Corso, and the underground filmmaker Jack Smith, in whose film Flaming Creatures Heliczer appeared in 1963.
‘In 1960 Heliczer moved to London, where he collaborated on his first film, Autumn Feast, with Jeff Keen. After moving to New York in 1962 he became involved with the Film-Makers’ Cooperative, appearing in films by Jack Smith and Andy Warhol. Eventually he bought his own 8mm camera and resumed making experimental films, including Satisfaction, Venus in Furs, Joan of Arc (in which Warhol appeared), and an “unfinished three-hour epic,” Dirt. With their primitive technique, anti-Catholic bent, and depictions of alternative sexuality, his films are often compared to those of Jack Smith.
‘Most of Heliczer’s films were silent, with sound added later. In some cases he used live musicians to provide a soundtrack. One band, the Falling Spikes, who played for a Heliczer show called The Launching of the Dream Weapon in early 1965, later changed their name to the Velvet Underground. At Heliczer’s multimedia shows, which he called “ritual happenings,” his films were projected through veils hung in front of the screen with colored lights and slides superimposed on them, while dancers performed onstage and musicians played in the background. Andy Warhol began organizing similar events in 1966; his Exploding Plastic Inevitable incorporated many of the same techniques and performers.
‘In November 1965, during the filming of Venus in Furs, the Velvet Underground and Heliczer were featured in a CBS News segment titled “The Making of an Underground Film,” which aired the following month. This brief appearance turned out to be the only network television exposure for either Heliczer or the band. Venus in Furs was named after a Velvet Underground song inspired by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s eponymous sadomasochistic novella. It features Barbara Rubin, another underground filmmaker, dressed as a nun. Angus MacLise, who at the time was still the drummer for the Velvets, also appears in the film. MacLise contributed numerous soundtracks for Heliczer’s films, and appears in at least one other, Satisfaction, along with John Cale.
‘In December 1965, Heliczer’s The Last Rites was included in the New Cinema Festival (also known as the Expanded Cinema Festival), an extensive series of multimedia productions in New York presented by Jonas Mekas and featuring the work of such artists as Robert Rauschenberg and Claes Oldenburg. Afterwards Mekas wrote in the Village Voice, “Three new film-makers have appeared on the scene with glimpses of beauty and promises for the future: Andy Meyer, Robert Nelson, and Piero Heliczer.” The Last Rites also made a lasting impression on the playwright Richard Foreman, who recalled it years later as one of his favorites.
‘Jonas Mekas: “Among all the new movies (it has been quiet lately on the underground scene) Piero Heliczer’s Dirt touched me most deeply. Its beauty is very personal and lyrical. And every frame of it is cinema. I cannot do justice to this beautiful work in one paragraph. It was shot on 8mm and much of its beauty and its cinema come from 8mm properties of camera and film. It is all motion. Together with Brakhage’s Songs, Branaman’s abstractions and Ken Jacobs’s not yet released work, Heliczer’s Dirt is one of the four works that use 8mm film properly and for art’s sake.”
‘Many years after the murder of his father, Heliczer was awarded a sum of money by the German government in compensation. He gave much of it away to fellow artists, but kept enough to try and establish a filmmaker’s cooperative in Paris like the one in New York. He also bought a small house in Normandy. The filmmaker’s cooperative was not a success, so he moved to Amsterdam, where he lived on a houseboat for a time. Vandals sank the boat, leaving him homeless, and he spent some time living on the streets of New York. In 1984 he returned to Normandy, where he spent his remaining years working in a secondhand bookstore. The 56-year-old filmmaker was killed in July 1993 when his moped was hit by a truck near Rambouillet. He is buried in Préaux-du-Perche, France.
‘Of the many films Heliczer made, some are lost, in full or in part, and only a few are still in circulation. Heliczer’s publications are also hard to find. In 1979, the poet Gerard Malanga edited the ninth issue of Dennis Cooper’s zine Little Caesar and presented several hundred pages of tributes to and reminiscences of Heliczer. In 2001, Malanga assembled a collection of Heliczer’s poetry titled A Purchase in the White Botanica. A collection of Heliczer publications was exhibited at the Boo-Hooray gallery in New York in 2014.
‘His daughter Thérèse Casper (née Heliczer) began making a documentary film about his life in 2013. Another daughter, Wynn Heliczer, is an actress.’ — collaged
Films
w/ Jeff Keen AUTUMN FEAST (1961)
‘A grown-up fantasy based on Guy Fawkes Day, the great children’s holiday of England, which is a combination of Halloween and the Fourth of July.’ — Piero Heliczer
‘The Autumn Feast lays bare (there should be something that rhymes with hair here or bare there) the mythic structure behind the orange domes and cardboard battlements and gilded gables of our Pasty National Howard Johnsons Baghdad. It rubs the very noses of our mannequins in our mold and sends us spinning into the street – undone and toothless.’ — Jack Smith
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND (1965)
‘This is, I think, the only circulating excerpt from The Velvet Underground’s first TV appearance. The 31 seconds here are taken from the 1996 BBC documentary ‘Dancing in the Streets’. Shorter versions of the same clip have been more recently used in the John Cale documentary from 1998, and the ‘Seven Ages of Rock’ documentary. No sound because the original soundtrack isn’t included on any of the circulating versions.’ — msturdy
DIRT (1965)
‘DIRT is a poem in the form of scopitone. The pictures presented here are from a segment called Satisfaction, with the Rolling Stones on the sound track. 1. Hairdressing; 2. Kiss; 3. Dancing; 4. Undressing; 5. Wedding.’ — Film-makers Coop
Exhibition
The exhibition “Piero Heliczer” a comprehensive display of Heliczer’s photographs, manuscripts, publications and ephemera curated by Rose & Wynn Heliczer and Sophie Vinet, was held at the Paris art space Les Bains-Douches in 2015.
Ephemera
The Invisible Father
‘In the 1960s, beat poet and experimental filmmaker Piero Heliczer helped shape New American Cinema, and was enmeshed with iconic filmmaker Andy Warhol and The Velvet Underground at the very start of their careers.
‘Through interviews with family and friends, found photos, and archival footage, Piero’s daughter, Thérèse Heliczer, explores the promise and perils of leading an authentic, creative life, and the impact that it can have on the people you leave behind in the process. Wondering if she can make peace with her absent father if she can find a connection to him through his art, she explores the artistic legacy and life of a man she never knew.’ — Therese Casper
Trailer
Further
Piero Heliczer @ Verdant Press
Piero Heliczer – poet, publisher and filmmaker
Piero Heliczer @ MUBI
Piero Heliczer @ The Film-makers Cooperative
The Underground Life of Piero Heliczer
Obituary: Piero Heliczer
Book: ‘Piero Heliczer: I Must Be More Like An Ant Than A Cigale Because I Like To Sing In Winter’
Piero Heliczer, le génie oublié de l’underground
Piero HELICZER – Les Hommes sans épaules
La vie tumultueuse du poète Piero Heliczer
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p.s. Hey. I’m very happy to turn the blog into a red carpet for this fantastic new book of writings and visuals by the visionary poet/filmmaker/actor Piero Heliczer who’s finally starting to get his due after decades of sidelining. Those of you who know my old magazine Little Caesar from the early 80s might recall a special issue guest-edited by Gerard Malanga that was largely devoted to Heliczer. The book is fascinating, and it’s highly recommended by me. ** David Ehrenstein, Ha ha. But RIP James Bidgood indeed. ** Dominik, Hi!!! We align! I’m going that weird American store (with the very American name The Real McCoy) today to score some junk including a ‘heaven on earth’ dispenser! Oh, no, poor love. How do we rescue him from his doldrums on our limited budgets. By turning love’s cute but boring boyfriend’s penis into an aerosol whipped cream dispenser, G. ** Maria, Isabella, Camila, Malaria, Gabriela, Ouch! I’m thanking my lucky stars for your resilience. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Oh, Ben, I’m so sorry. Having gone through that with my mom, but having been halfway across the world for most of it, it’s really good that you can be there for and with him, and, yes, I hope he gets home as soon as humanly possible. I’m so, so sorry to hear that, my friend. Life can be so hideous. Love, Dennis. ** David, When I was in therapy, my therapist was always trying to get me locked into a memory cycle, and I was, like, fuck that shit, give my future daydreams. I don’t know if I’d say fuck it and eat the biscuits. Probably. Well, if they’re really ace biscuits. ** T, Hi, T. Cool, I was hoping to confuse. I do love confusion. Pathway to the stars. Maybe I’m a softie, but I thought all those kids were just total sweetie pies letting a little adorable complicatedness leak out for a safe few seconds. My feet … uh, thank you for making me a weirdo, ha ha? I hope today makes your heart do this every time you’re in public. xo. ** LC, Hi! Welcome! I was hoping that would happen, so … cool. Thank you. You doing good? ** Shane, The bottom of it is probably more disappointing than its erasure? ** Verity Pawloski, Hello. ** Dom Lyne, Hi, Dom. Tickling is a good effect. Apropos or not, tickling has suddenly become a big fetish in the master/slave community, I have no clue why. Your bro, man, what a mess. I’m very happy to hear that the medical community has given you almost entirely good news, and I hope your ears stay wide awake. And just as happy that you’re working on stuff. Awesome! I’m doing okay over here. Stuff’s happening to a sufficient degree. You take care, my friend. xo. ** rewritedept, Hi. If I’m there then and not swamped with film stuff, maybe, yeah. I’ll go listen to their new thing. Riff machine! Food of the gods. Have fun getting the garage turned into awesomeness central. ** Brian, Hey, Brian. There’s a really old porn movie from the early 70s whose premise is a horny guy dies and then his ghost haunts the guys he was into, and the movie consists of his ghost going around fucking said guys, which consists of a bunch poor porn actors bouncing around on beds trying to believably pretend they’re being fucked by someone who’s invisible. Needless to say, it’s not an effective film in the manner that I assume it was intended to be. I’ve never seen that Ophüls film, I don’t think, but, yeah, he’s great. I need do an Ophüls post, actually. Oh, wow, I get why making a film is intimidating, but that’s so cool. Except for the paying for it part. But still. That’s exciting. Maybe you’ll discover previously unknown talents in yourself. Today I’m doing a zoom thing with a woman who’s writing her dissertation on Gisele Vienne’s/my works. Then I’m going to the American junk food store. Then I think I’m going to make my first visit to the Paris Sewers Museum, which is basically a tour of the Paris sewer. Otherwise, some meetings and some work and my biweekly Zoom Book Club on Saturday (discussing a Douglas Sirk film, a story by Kafka, and some prose poems by James Tate). And god knows what else? And your weekend started wonderfully, I hope, and how? ** Okay. The post has been introduced and now you’re free to roam it. Please do. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
