The exhibition “Under the Shadow of the Tree” curated by the duo Francesco Urbano Ragazzi at the Pavilion de l’Esprit Nouveau places the building – a residential prototype built in 1925 by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, reconstructed in a faithful copy in Bologna in 1977 by Giuliano and Glauco Gresleri with José Oubrerie – in dialogue with works by Mekas, which brings out from the big screen his film diaries. As if it were a sounding board, the entire pavilion is filled with the sounds of the audio diaries with which the artist has recorded life in New York. The tree that stands out in the center of Le Corbusier’s architecture, crossing its ceiling, is instead the element around which revolves a reflection in images on the role of nature in the work of this author, a fundamental figure in the history of avant-garde cinema American.

More information on exhibition can be found here.

Lecture and film screening organized in relation to Jonas Mekas Centenary Special Film Program at Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2023, and the first major Andy Warhol exhibition in Kyoto Kyocera museum. Art historian Inesa Brašiškė and film historian Lukas Brašiškis in a talk moderated by prof. Tetsuya Ozaki of Kyoto University of Arts explore the connections between the American pop icon and a Lithuanian-born filmmaker, film critic, curator, and film entrepreneur. Through a close examination of films by Warhol and Mekas as well as their other roles as organizers and archivists, they discuss the impact that Mekas and Warhol had on the avant-garde art and their lasting legacy in the history of film.

The event features a selection of films, including Award Presentation To Andy Warhol, (Jonas Mekas, 1964) and Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol (Jonas Mekas, 1990).

For more information on this event visit link here.

On February 11, “Letters to Jonas Mekas. Hot afternoon with Autarkia and Syndicate”, a tribute to the great Lithuanian filmmaker and pioneer of avant-garde cinema, to whom “Images Are Real”, on show at Mattatoio Roma until 23 February 2023, comes to life in the MACRO – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma spaces.

For the occasion, the curatorial duo Francesco Urbano Ragazzi invites the independent platforms Autarkia and Syndicate.

Led by JL Murtaugh, the two platforms gather a group of friends to celebrate the filmmaker’s powerful cultural legacy. Artists from the new Lithuanian scene pay tribute to their intellectual connection to Mekas and elaborate on a genre to which the artist has long been committed: epistolary and video-letter. In the spaces of the museum video works alternate with live interventions.

For more information on this event visit link here.

Online streaming of the film “J. Mekas” (1980) by Roberta’s Verba. In 1977, accompanied by his wife and daughter, Jonas Mekas returned to Lithuania for the second time since his departure for exile in 1944. Documentary filmmaker Robertas Verba recorded the images of the return to his native country, the memory of which irrigates Mekas’ cinema.

Film numérisé à partir d’une copie 35 mm par le Lithuanian Central State Archives en 2022 pour le Lithuanian Film Centre. Remerciements au Lithuanian Film Centre (Austė Jucytė) et à Austė Zdančiūtė (ambassade de Lituanie en France).

The film link is here.

Monira Foundation proudly presents Jonas Mekas, Open Archives, a year long exhibit at Mana Contemporary Chicago featuring artifacts, items and memorabilia from Mekas personal archives.

Since March of 2020 Open Archives has send out a weekly digital release offering a glimpse into the personal archives of Jonas Mekas. Every item shared was selected by Sebastian Mekas, Director of the Jonas Mekas Studio, with the goal of keeping the studio practice alive and showing its long term relevance through its diaristic and meticulously cataloged collections of artwork, artifacts, and other materials.

An Open Archives presumes a veritable archive. That of Jonas Mekas comprises more than eight decades of collected material of the famed filmmaker, poet and impresario of the avant garde.

The hundred or so items, presented publicly for the first time – photographs, manifestos and scribbles, poems and faxes, as well as clippings, tchotchkes and working tools – broadly expand the understanding of this cultural figure as well as the many decades of shifting Zeitgeist through which he moved.

For more information visit link here.

Jonas Mekas 100! – the international programme of events celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Lithuanian-born filmmaker’s birth – comes to Italy with “Images Are Real”, an exhibition and series of events curated by the duo Francesco Urbano Ragazzi, who have accompanied Mekas on a number art projects from Venice to New York, Seoul and Reykjavík.

The exhibition takes a retrospective look at the sixty-year career of Jonas Mekas (Biržai 1922 – New York 2019) within and beyond the history of avant-garde cinema. Presenting a broad selection of works ranging from the 1960s to the late 2010s, the project sets out to explore the Lithuanian filmmaker’s work as a form of resistance to human brutality, a quest for happiness through which to cope with the uncertainty of the present.

The title of the exhibition is a quote from the film “Out-takes From the Life of a Happy Man”, in which the artist’s off-screen voice reflects: “Memory is gone, but the images are here, and the images are real!”.

Curated by Francesco Urbano Ragazzi.

More information on this event can be found here.

Gwangju Museum of Art is pleased to present “To All My Dear Friends”, an exhibition to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Jonas Mekas’ birth. The exhibition focuses on Jonas Mekas’ important films that have been created throughout his life as Mekas was a master of American avant-garde cinema and established a new horizon in the history of experimental film through the format of ‘diary film.’ The exhibition begins with the idea that the stories that many of his films present are indeed his letters with wishful greetings he wanted to deliver to his friends.

The exhibition also illuminates his friendship with Nam June Paik, whom he worked with for some time as an immigrant and exile in New York. Nam June Paik’s Sistine Chapel where images of Fluxus artists at the same time working with Jonas Mekas are projected is on display.

More information on this exhibition can be found here.

Online streaming of the film “J. Mekas” (1980) by Roberta’s Verba. In 1977, accompanied by his wife and daughter, Jonas Mekas returned to Lithuania for the second time since his departure for exile in 1944. Documentary filmmaker Robertas Verba recorded the images of the return to his native country, the memory of which irrigates Mekas’ cinema.

Film numérisé à partir d’une copie 35 mm par le Lithuanian Central State Archives en 2022 pour le Lithuanian Film Centre. Remerciements au Lithuanian Film Centre (Austė Jucytė) et à Austė Zdančiūtė (ambassade de Lituanie en France).

The film link is here.

The exhibition “Under the Shadow of the Tree” curated by the duo Francesco Urbano Ragazzi at the Pavilion de l’Esprit Nouveau places the building – a residential prototype built in 1925 by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, reconstructed in a faithful copy in Bologna in 1977 by Giuliano and Glauco Gresleri with José Oubrerie – in dialogue with works by Mekas, which brings out from the big screen his film diaries. As if it were a sounding board, the entire pavilion is filled with the sounds of the audio diaries with which the artist has recorded life in New York. The tree that stands out in the center of Le Corbusier’s architecture, crossing its ceiling, is instead the element around which revolves a reflection in images on the role of nature in the work of this author, a fundamental figure in the history of avant-garde cinema American.

More information on exhibition can be found here.

Monira Foundation proudly presents Jonas Mekas, Open Archives, a year long exhibit at Mana Contemporary Chicago featuring artifacts, items and memorabilia from Mekas personal archives.

Since March of 2020 Open Archives has send out a weekly digital release offering a glimpse into the personal archives of Jonas Mekas. Every item shared was selected by Sebastian Mekas, Director of the Jonas Mekas Studio, with the goal of keeping the studio practice alive and showing its long term relevance through its diaristic and meticulously cataloged collections of artwork, artifacts, and other materials.

An Open Archives presumes a veritable archive. That of Jonas Mekas comprises more than eight decades of collected material of the famed filmmaker, poet and impresario of the avant garde.

The hundred or so items, presented publicly for the first time – photographs, manifestos and scribbles, poems and faxes, as well as clippings, tchotchkes and working tools – broadly expand the understanding of this cultural figure as well as the many decades of shifting Zeitgeist through which he moved.

For more information visit link here.