1. Jonas Mekas was active in New York City, where he co-founded Anthology Film Archives, The Film-Makers' Cooperative, and the journal Film Culture.
21 Facts About Jonas Mekas
1. 2.
Jonas Mekas was the first film critic for The Village Voice.
3.
Jonas Mekas mentored and supported many prominent artists and filmmakers, including Ken Jacobs, Peter Bogdanovich, Chantal Akerman, Richard Foreman, John Waters, Barbara Rubin, Yoko Ono, and Martin Scorsese.
4.
Jonas Mekas helped launch the writing careers of the critics Andrew Sarris, Amy Taubin, and J Hoberman.
5.
Jonas Mekas's early poetry collection, Idylls of Semeniskiai, is a celebrated work in his native Lithuania.
6.
In 2024, the Centre Pompidou dedicated its annual Poetry Day to Jonas Mekas, following past editions honoring figures such as Patti Smith and John Giorno.
7.
Jonas Mekas was born in Semeniskiai, the son of Elzbieta and Povilas Jonas Mekas on December 24,1922.
8.
In 1944, Jonas Mekas left Lithuania with his brother, Adolfas Jonas Mekas.
9.
Jonas Mekas discovered avant-garde film at venues such as Amos Vogel's pioneering Cinema 16, and he began curating avant-garde film screenings at Gallery East on Avenue A and Houston Street and at the Film Forum series at Carl Fisher Auditorium on 57th Street.
10.
Jonas Mekas was a close collaborator with artists such as Marie Menken, Andy Warhol, Nico, Allen Ginsberg, Yoko Ono, John Lennon, Salvador Dali, and fellow Lithuanian George Maciunas.
11.
In 1964, Jonas Mekas was arrested on obscenity charges for showing Flaming Creatures and Jean Genet's Un Chant d'Amour.
12.
Jonas Mekas launched a campaign against the censorship board, and for the next few years continued to exhibit films at the Filmmakers' Cinematheque, the Jewish Museum, and the Gallery of Modern Art.
13.
Jonas Mekas's legs appeared in John Lennon and Yoko Ono's experimental film Up Your Legs Forever.
14.
Jonas Mekas expanded the scope of his practice with his later works of multi-monitor installations, sound immersion pieces and "frozen-film" prints.
15.
Jonas Mekas's work has been exhibited at the 51st Venice Biennial, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, the Ludwig Museum, the Serpentine Gallery, the Jewish Museum, and the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center.
16.
Additionally, Jonas Mekas was a writer and published his poems and prose in Lithuanian, French, German, and English.
17.
Jonas Mekas's family is featured in Jonas's films, including Out-takes from the Life of a Happy Man and As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty.
18.
Jonas Mekas died at his home in Brooklyn on January 23,2019, at the age of 96.
19.
Jonas Mekas is the subject of a documentary, Fragments of Paradise, which premiered at the 2022 Venice Film Festival.
20.
Jonas Mekas long maintained that, while working for local newspapers, he clandestinely-transcribed BBC broadcasts in support of the underground.
21.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's website biography of Jonas Mekas maintains that he participated in both the anti-Soviet and anti-Nazi undergrounds.