Illustration by Ed Sanders

As a founder of the influential musical group The Fugs, the proprietor of the Peace Eye Bookstore, and the publisher of a self-declared “magazine of the arts”  (we won’t reprint its title here, but it’s similar to the that of his recent memoir, “Fug You”), Ed Sanders displayed a unique brand of creativity. At Boo Hooray Gallery, from Feb. 16 to March 8, you’ll be able to step back into the 1960s and view many of his East Village-based printing press’s rarest treasures.

Among other things, the gallery is displaying a full run of the mythic magazine – 13 issues from 1962 to 1965, featuring many of the prominent poets, writers, and artists living in the neighborhood at the time: Allen Ginsberg, Leroi Jones, Andy Warhol, Herbert Huncke, Ted Berrigan, Frank O’Hara, William S. Burroughs and a host of others. Laboriously produced on a mimeograph machine from a “secret location on the Lower East Side,” the journal heralded a “mimeo revolution” of small presses. It also sparked censorship battles, with its dedication to free expression and its defiance of societal conventions regarding sexual freedom and drug usage.

An opening party for the show will be held at Boo Hooray Gallery (265 Canal Street, 6th floor) on Feb. 16 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Of course, Mr. Sanders was also closely tied to another exemplar of the underground press, The East Village Other, so consider this a warm-up for “Blowing Minds: The East Village Other, The Rise of Underground Comix and the Alternative Press” on Feb. 28.