Jonas Mekas: Godfather of Avant Garde “New American Cinema” to Represent Lithuania at the 51st Venice Biennale, organized by Lithuanian Art Museum, Vilnius with support of Stendhal Gallery, New York, NY.
New York, NY — 05/25/05 — The visionary work of Jonas Mekas and The New American Cinema has emerged as the guiding cultural force in the new millennium. The artist’s optimism can be seen in his films and videos, projecting faith in the power of the medium as an affirmation of human vitality as well as a vehicle of resistance to oppressive forces of history.
Jonas Mekas will represent his birthplace, Lithuania, in the upcoming 2005 Venice Biennale. Having left Lithuania shortly after Nazi occupation, the artist’s sense of exile and loss heavily informs his films. His intimate, diary-like style of filmmaking often looks to his homeland, his family, and the play of these uprooted childhood images in consistently vital contexts: “In this exhibition, as in my work in general, I am concerned with the discovery and celebration of small, insignificant, personal moments of our life, my life, life of my family, my close friends.” Mekas offers up his own personal experience in a unified domestic language that knits singular human identity through passing observation and into the diverse fabric of political and cultural life.
“Celebrations of the Small and Personal in the Times of Bigness,” 51st International Venice Biennale To convey the artist’s expansive career, the exhibition will follow the development of Mekas’ work, already an important part of independent and avant-garde filmmaking history. These celebrated earlier films will include Diaries, Notes, & Sketches a.k.a. Walden, Lost, Lost, Lost, He Stands in the Desert Counting the Seconds of his Life, Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania, As I Was Moving Ahead I saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty, Biographical Quartet. Among his more recent works, Home Videos (1987-2005) and Letters From Greenpoint will also be screened. Installed in a separate space, a first version of which was presented at his solo exhibition “Fragments of paradise” at Stendhal Gallery, New York, includes Travels (travelogues from Italy, Sweden and Russia, 7 min., 1970), Happy Birthday to John (homage to John Lennon, 24 min., 1996), Cassis (sunset in southern France, 4 min, 1966), Notes on the Circus (12 min, 1966), Film for Maya: Father and Daughter (4.5 min, 2005), the double-film Elvis (1 min, 2005), and Wien & Mozart (1 min, 2001). The book Conversations, Letters, Notes, Misc. Pieces etc will accompany the exhibit with rare and earlier unpublished interviews, conversations, public appearances and essays by the artist. The 51st Venice Biennale, Italy Lithuanian Pavilion, located in the Ludoteca Santa Maria Ausiliatrice Castello 450 30122 Venezia The Lithuanian Pavilion is located in the Ludoteca venue at the end of the Via Garibaldi in Venice, Italy. There will be two spaces for video installations and two for non-stop film screenings.
Commissioners: Liutauras Pibilskis, Lolita Jablonskiene Funded by the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture Organized by the Lithuanian Art Museum, Vilnius With support from the Stendhal Gallery, New York
LCD technology courtesy of Westinghouse Opening Reception 9 June 2005, 3pm Exhibition Dates 12 June – 6 November 2005 The exhibition in the Lithuanian Pavilion will show important new developments in Jonas Mekas’s work together with older pieces that are already classics of independent filmmaking.
For more information please contact the Lithuanian Art Museum, Boksto 5, LT-01126, Vilnius, Lithuania; tel +370 5 2122997; fax +370 5 2122888 and the commissioners: liutauras@thing.net; lolita@ldm.lt, or Stendhal Gallery at (212) 366.1549 info@stendhalgallery.com.
Jonas Mekas was born in Semeniskiai, Lithuania, in 1922. He lives and works in New York. After being imprisoned by the Nazis in a forced-labor camp and a period in Belgian Displaced Person camps, Mekas studied philosophy at the University of Mainz 1946–1948. He then emigrated with his brother Adolfas to the United States, settling in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Mekas discovered avant-garde film at venues such as Amos Vogel’s Cinema 16, and began to screen his own films in 1953. In 1954 he became Editor-in-Chief of Film Culture magazine, and in 1958 he began his groundbreaking ŒMovie Journal’ column in The Village Voice. In 1962 Mekas founded the Film-Makers’ Cooperative (FMC) and in 1964 the Filmmakers’ Cinematheque. The latter eventually grew into Anthology Film Archives, one of the world’s largest repositories of avant-garde film, which Mekas continues to direct. Mekas’s film output includes narrative (Guns of the Trees, 1961), documentary (The Brig, 1963) and diaries (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). In addition to his prolific output in film, Jonas Mekas has published 24 volumes of poetry, essays, interviews, and diaries, and has been the subject of 12 book-length studies. His films have been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world, including Jeu de Paume in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Tokyo, Documenta 11, the Venice Biennale, and many others.
STENDHAL | GALLERY 545 W 20th St., NY T 212.366-1549 www.stendhalgallery.com
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Press Release
Jonas Mekas: Godfather of Avant Garde “New American Cinema” to Represent Lithuania at the 51st Venice Biennale, organized by Lithuanian Art Museum, Vilnius with support of Stendhal Gallery, New York, NY.
New York, NY — 05/25/05 — The visionary work of Jonas Mekas and The New American Cinema has emerged as the guiding cultural force in the new millennium. The artist’s optimism can be seen in his films and videos, projecting faith in the power of the medium as an affirmation of human vitality as well as a vehicle of resistance to oppressive forces of history.
Jonas Mekas will represent his birthplace, Lithuania, in the upcoming 2005 Venice Biennale. Having left Lithuania shortly after Nazi occupation, the artist’s sense of exile and loss heavily informs his films. His intimate, diary-like style of filmmaking often looks to his homeland, his family, and the play of these uprooted childhood images in consistently vital contexts: “In this exhibition, as in my work in general, I am concerned with the discovery and celebration of small, insignificant, personal moments of our life, my life, life of my family, my close friends.” Mekas offers up his own personal experience in a unified domestic language that knits singular human identity through passing observation and into the diverse fabric of political and cultural life.
“Celebrations of the Small and Personal in the Times of Bigness,” 51st International Venice Biennale To convey the artist’s expansive career, the exhibition will follow the development of Mekas’ work, already an important part of independent and avant-garde filmmaking history. These celebrated earlier films will include Diaries, Notes, & Sketches a.k.a. Walden, Lost, Lost, Lost, He Stands in the Desert Counting the Seconds of his Life, Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania, As I Was Moving Ahead I saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty, Biographical Quartet. Among his more recent works, Home Videos (1987-2005) and Letters From Greenpoint will also be screened. Installed in a separate space, a first version of which was presented at his solo exhibition “Fragments of paradise” at Stendhal Gallery, New York, includes Travels (travelogues from Italy, Sweden and Russia, 7 min., 1970), Happy Birthday to John (homage to John Lennon, 24 min., 1996), Cassis (sunset in southern France, 4 min, 1966), Notes on the Circus (12 min, 1966), Film for Maya: Father and Daughter (4.5 min, 2005), the double-film Elvis (1 min, 2005), and Wien & Mozart (1 min, 2001). The book Conversations, Letters, Notes, Misc. Pieces etc will accompany the exhibit with rare and earlier unpublished interviews, conversations, public appearances and essays by the artist. The 51st Venice Biennale, Italy Lithuanian Pavilion, located in the Ludoteca Santa Maria Ausiliatrice Castello 450 30122 Venezia The Lithuanian Pavilion is located in the Ludoteca venue at the end of the Via Garibaldi in Venice, Italy. There will be two spaces for video installations and two for non-stop film screenings.
Commissioners: Liutauras Pibilskis, Lolita Jablonskiene Funded by the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture Organized by the Lithuanian Art Museum, Vilnius With support from the Stendhal Gallery, New York
LCD technology courtesy of Westinghouse Opening Reception 9 June 2005, 3pm Exhibition Dates 12 June – 6 November 2005 The exhibition in the Lithuanian Pavilion will show important new developments in Jonas Mekas’s work together with older pieces that are already classics of independent filmmaking.
For more information please contact the Lithuanian Art Museum, Boksto 5, LT-01126, Vilnius, Lithuania; tel +370 5 2122997; fax +370 5 2122888 and the commissioners: liutauras@thing.net; lolita@ldm.lt, or Stendhal Gallery at (212) 366.1549 info@stendhalgallery.com.
Jonas Mekas was born in Semeniskiai, Lithuania, in 1922. He lives and works in New York. After being imprisoned by the Nazis in a forced-labor camp and a period in Belgian Displaced Person camps, Mekas studied philosophy at the University of Mainz 1946–1948. He then emigrated with his brother Adolfas to the United States, settling in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Mekas discovered avant-garde film at venues such as Amos Vogel’s Cinema 16, and began to screen his own films in 1953. In 1954 he became Editor-in-Chief of Film Culture magazine, and in 1958 he began his groundbreaking ŒMovie Journal’ column in The Village Voice. In 1962 Mekas founded the Film-Makers’ Cooperative (FMC) and in 1964 the Filmmakers’ Cinematheque. The latter eventually grew into Anthology Film Archives, one of the world’s largest repositories of avant-garde film, which Mekas continues to direct. Mekas’s film output includes narrative (Guns of the Trees, 1961), documentary (The Brig, 1963) and diaries (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). In addition to his prolific output in film, Jonas Mekas has published 24 volumes of poetry, essays, interviews, and diaries, and has been the subject of 12 book-length studies. His films have been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world, including Jeu de Paume in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Photography in Tokyo, Documenta 11, the Venice Biennale, and many others.
STENDHAL | GALLERY 545 W 20th St., NY T 212.366-1549 www.stendhalgallery.com