Maya Stendhal Gallery

JONAS MEKAS
KEN JACOBS
ROBERT BREER
JEFF SCHER
BILL MORRISON
MARTIN ARNOLD
PAULA SCHER
ORNA BRADSHAW

JONAS MEKAS
Biography

Jonas Mekas was born in 1922 in Semeniskiai, Lithuania. He currently lives and works in New York. In 1944, Jonas Mekas and his brother, Adolfas, were taken by the Nazis and imprisoned in a forced labor camp in Nazi Germany for eight months. After the War, he studied philosophy at the University of Mainz from 1946-48 and at the end of 1949, he emigrated with his brother to the U.S. settling in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in New York. Two weeks after his arrival, he borrowed the money to buy his first Bolex 16-mm camera and began to record moments of his life. He discovered avant-garde film at venues such as Amos Vogel’s pioneering cinema 16, and he began screening his own films in 1953. He has been one of the leading figures of American avant-garde filmmaking or the “New American Cinema,” as he dubbed it in the late ‘50s, playing various roles: in 1954, he became editor and chief of Film Culture; in 1958 he began writing his “Movie Journal” column for the Village Voice; in 1962 he co-founded the Film-Makers’ Cooperative (FMC) and the Filmmakers’ Cinematheque in 1964, which eventually grew into Anthology Film Archives, one of the world’s largest and most important repositories of avant-garde films. His own output ranging from narrative films (Guns of the Trees, 1961) to documentaries (the Brig, 1963) and to “diaries” such as Walden (1969); Lost, Lost, Lost, (1975); Reminiscences of a Voyage to Lithuania, (1972); Zefiro torna, (1992) and As I was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2001) have been screened extensively at festivals and museums around the world.

AWARDS

Has received grants and awards from the Albright-Knox Gallery, the Long Warf Theater Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Rockefeller Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts.
Member of American center of P.E.N.
Golden Medal, Philadelphia College of Art, “For the devotion, passion and selfless dedication to the rediscovery of the newest art,” 1966
Guggenheim Fellowship, 1977
Creative Arts Award, Brandeis University, 1989.
Mel Novikoff Award, San Francisco Film Festival, 1992.
Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres,
Ministry of Culture, France, 1992, 2000.
Lithuanian National Award, 1995.
Doctor of Fine Arts, Honoris Causa, Kansas City Art Institute, 1996.
Special Tribute, New York Film Critics Circle Awards, 1996.
Pier Paolo Pasolini Award, Paris, 1997.
International Documentary Film Association Award, Los Angeles, 1997.
Governors Award, Skohegan School of Painting and Sculpture, 1997.
Artium Doctoris Honoris Causa, Universitatis Vytauti Magni, Lithuania, 1997.

EXHIBITIONS OF FROZEN FILM FRAMES AND ART

Galerie National jeu de Paume, 1992.
Galerie du Jour Agnes B., Paris, February-March 1992, 1996, 1999.
Still Gallery, Edinburgh, May 1996.
Laurence-Miller, New York, July-August 1996.
Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, November 1996 – March 1997.
Madrid Art Fair, February 1997.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Vilnius, December 1997.
Le Printemps de Cahors, June 1998.
Gandy Gallery, Praha, Summer 1998.
Susan Inglett Gallery, New York, June 1999.
Pupelis Gallery, Obeliai, May 1999.
La Beaute. Festival of Avignon. Films and Installations. Summer 2000.
Musee d’Art Moderne de la Villede Paris. Films and Installations. Summer 2000.
Laboratorium, Antwerp, 2000.
Maison Europeenne de la Photographie, Summer 2002.
Documenta 11, Kassel, Summer 2002.
Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Films and a sound installation. To Petrarca Who Walked Over the Hills of Provence, and a 24th video installation, dedication to Ferdinand Leger. Summer show 2003.
La Biennale di Venezia. Installation at the Utopia Station Pavillion. 2003. Museum of Contemporary Art, Vilinius. Video Installation, Dedidcation to Ferdinand Leger. Fall 2003.
Sideshow Gallery, Williamsburg Brooklyn, Frozen Film Frames. May-June 2003.
Maison de la Photographie, Frozen Films Frames. Paris, 2003.
Centre National de la Photographie. Paris. Frozen Films Frames, in the show Fables de L’Identite. June-August 2003.
Maya Stendhal Gallery, New York, January 2005. Group Show “REPETITIONS”
Maya Stendhal Gallery, New York, March 2005. Solo Exhibition “Fragments of Paradise”

FILMOGRAPHY

Guns of the Trees (1962), 75 minutes.
Film Magazine of the Arts (Summer, 1963), 20 minutes.
The Brig (1964), 68 minutes.
Award Presentation to Andy Warhol (1964), 12 minutes.
Report from Millbrook (1965/ 1966), 12 minutes.
Walden (Diaries, Notes, and Sketches), (filmed 1964-1968, edited 1968-69), 3 hours.
Hare Krishna (1966), 4 minutes.
Notes on the Circus (1966), 12 minutes.
Cassis (1966), 4.5 minutes.
The Italian Notebook (1967), 15 minutes.
Time and Fortune Vietnam Newsreel (1968), 4 minutes.
Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania (1971- 1972), 82 minutes.
Lost, Lost, Lost (1976), 2 hours, 58 minutes.
In Between: 1964-8 (1978), 52 minutes.
Notes for Jerome (1978), 45 minutes.
Paradise Not Yet Lost (a/k/a Oona’s Third year) (1979), 96.5 minutes
Street Songs (1966/1983) 10.5 minutes
Cup/ Saucer/Dancers/Radio (1965/1983), 23 minutes
Erik Hawkins: Excerpts from “Here and Now with Watchers”/ Lucia Dlugoszewski Performs (1983), 6 min
He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life (1969/1985), 2.5 hours
Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol (1990), 35 minutes.
Mob of Angels/ the Baptism (1991), 60 minutes. Video.
Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas (1992), 34 minutes.
The Education of Sebastian or Egypt Regained (1992), 6 hours. Video.
Imperfect 3- Image films (1995), 6 minutes.
On My Way to Fujiyama (1995), 25 minutes.
Happy Birthday to John (1996), 24 minutes.
Memories of Frankenstein (1996), 95 minutes.
Birth of a Nation (1997), 85 minutes.
Scenes from Allen’s Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit (April 1997), 67 minutes.Video.
Letter from Nowhere-Laiskas is Niekur N.1 (1997), 75 minutes. Video. In Lithuanian.
Song of Avignon (1998), 5 minutes.
Laboratorium (1999), 63 minutes. Video.