Jonas Mekas
Born: 1922
Hometown: Semeniškiai, Lithuania
Lives and Works: New York, NY
Website: http://www.jonasmekasfilms.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonasmekas
Education:
The Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany, 1948
About The Artist
Jonas Mekas is a Lithuanian-born American filmmaker, writer, and curator known as the “godfather of American avant-garde cinema.” The founder of the Anthology Film Archives in 1964, which remains the world’s most important repository of avant-garde films, Mekas has directed and produced numerous projects of his own, ranging from narrative compositions (Guns of the Trees, 1961) to documentaries (The Brig, 1963) and “diaries” (Lost, Lost, Lost, 1965). Subjects of his works include Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and her children, as well as John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
Mekas’s work has been presented at venues such as the 51st Venice Biennale, Documenta 11, the PS1 Contemporary Art Center, and the recently re-opened Eero Saarinen designed JetBlue Terminal at JFK Airport. In 2005, Mekas shot 365 short videos for Apple Computer’s Video iPod, which he released once a day on his website. A lecturer on film at MIT, Cooper Union, and New York University, Mekas opened the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center in Vilnius, Lithuania in 2007.
Galleries
James Fuentes LLC, New York, NY
Select Permanent Collections
Centre Georges Pompidou-Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, France
Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa, Israel
Fondazione Morra Greco, Naples, Italy
Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
Tate Britain, London, England
