A pioneer of the American film avant-garde of the 1960s and '70s, Ken Jacobs is a central figure in post-war experimental cinema. From his first films of the late 1950s to his recent experiments with digital video, his investigations and innovations have influenced countless artists.
A pioneer of the American film avant-garde of the 1960s and '70s, Ken Jacobs is a central figure in post-war experimental cinema. From his first films of the late 1950s to his recent experiments with digital video, his investigations and innovations have influenced countless artists.
A New Yorker by birth, Jacobs graduated from City University to find himself in the midst of the downtown art scene of the 1960s, which included artists Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol, beat writers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac; and the experimental theater troupes of Trisha Brown and Yvonne Rainer. Although Jacobs had studied painting with Hans Hoffman, he quickly gravitated to film, finding kindred spirits in radical filmmakers such as Jonas Mekas and Hollis Frampton. An early friendship with Jack Smith yielded several collaborations, including the seminal underground films Blonde Cobra (which Jonas Mekas dubbed "the masterpiece of Baudelairean cinema") and Little Stabs at Happiness, as well as a Provincetown beach-based live show, The Human Wreckage Review.
External links
Filmography (Movies)
Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse
Character:Self
Release Date:21/02/2025
Ken Jacobs - from Orchard Street to the Museum of Modern Art
Character:Self
Release Date:30/08/2023
Art-House America: Austin Film Society
Character:Self
Release Date:01/05/2023
Please Leave a Message: Anthology Film Archives Voicemails Through the Ages
Character:
Release Date:21/09/2022
Fragments of Paradise
Character:Self
Release Date:31/08/2022
Reminiscences of Jonas Mekas
Character:
Release Date:29/05/2016
What Is Cinema?
Character:Self
Release Date:06/09/2013
The Eternal Courtship
Character:
Release Date:05/05/2013
Emma's Dilemma
Character:Himself
Release Date:18/06/2012
Sleepless Nights Stories
Character:Self
Release Date:15/12/2011
Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film
Character:Himself
Release Date:24/07/2011
Cinematic Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J.L. Guerin
Character:Himself
Release Date:09/04/2011
Santos Dumont: Pré-Cineasta?
Character:Himself
Release Date:03/10/2010
Lavender
Character:Self
Release Date:01/06/2010
Momma's Man
Character:Dad
Release Date:18/01/2008
365 Day Project
Character:
Release Date:31/12/2007
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis
Character:Self
Release Date:11/04/2007
Star Spangled to Death
Character:Oscar Friendly / Ringmaster / Janitor
Release Date:21/05/2004
Nervous Ken
Character:
Release Date:15/05/2003
Shorts From the Underground
Character:Self
Release Date:08/09/2002
As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty
Character:Self
Release Date:05/11/2000
Birth of a Nation
Character:Self
Release Date:06/08/1997
Jonas in the Desert
Character:Self
Release Date:01/01/1994
Quartet Number One
Character:
Release Date:03/07/1991
He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life
Character:Self (archive footage)
Release Date:22/02/1986
Home Movies 1971-81
Character:
Release Date:01/01/1985
Lost, Lost, Lost
Character:Self
Release Date:14/09/1976
Horizons
Character:
Release Date:01/07/1973
Notes on the Buffalo Conference: “Autobiography in American Independent Cinema”
Character:
Release Date:26/03/1973
Huge Pupils
Character:Himself
Release Date:28/05/1968
Diaries, Notes, and Sketches
Character:Self
Release Date:01/03/1968
Bill's Hat
Character:
Release Date:01/01/1967
Blonde Cobra
Character:
Release Date:08/04/1963
Scotch Tape
Character:
Release Date:01/01/1962
Images
