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.
Ord&Bild (”Word&Image”) has been published since 1892, which makes it the oldest cultural journal in Sweden. The final issue of the printed journal on its 130-year jubilee (no. 5.2022) includes a section specifically dedicated to Jonas Mekas and the essay film Walden. Contributions by: Isabella Tjäder (SE), Lars Movin (DK), and Urbonas Studio (LT/US) as well as still images from Jonas Mekas film Walden and his poetry, translated into Swedish by Liana Ruokyte-Jonsson and Mikael Nydahl. The issue also includes a discussion on wetlands which is reflected in the Jonas Mekas section.
In parallel to the physical journal, we are engaged in a conversation with Index Contemporary Art Foundation over the course of several months. The results of this more experimental collaboration will be published online during the spring of 2023.
As part of the exhibition “…Poetry?” agnès b. collection (until January 22, 2023 at La Fab.) and the centenary Jonas Mekas 100! La Fab is pleased to present an afternoon dedicated to the poetry of Jonas Mekas.
Artists: Jackie Raynal, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Fox Magal
To mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Lithuania-born, naturalised American filmmaker, poet and artist Jonas Mekas, Cineteca Milano, in collaboration with the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in Italy and Lithuanian Film Culture, presents a masterclass dedicated to Mekas and the screening of the film “As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty” at Cinema Arlecchino.
Jonas Mekas is among the most important figures of the landscape of American independent and experimental cinema. “As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty” is the highest and most complete expression of his artistic and cinematographic thought. Putting together apparently trivial fragments of everyday life, Mekas composes a cine-diary that miraculously transforms itself into a hymn to the complexity, beauty and poetry of life: a unique and unforgettable cinematic experience that reminds us that paradise is here and now.
Two simultaneous Jonas Mekas’ film programmes in two main cinematheques of Israel – Tel Aviv Cinemateque and Jerusalem Cinematheque – will be presented for the audience, followed by roundtables and discussions, including local and international interlocutors.
The programmes curated by film critic Dr. Ariel Schweitzer.
Special screenings as a part of the tribute to Jonas Mekas are foreseen at Tel Aviv Cinematheque:
On 7 November, 21:00 before the documentary film “Fragments of Paradise” (by KD Davison) the opening remarks will be introduced by the curator of the tribute Dr. Ariel Schweitzer.
On 11 November, 12:00 before the film “Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania” (by J. Mekas), there will be a discussion on the work of Jonas Mekas, including panelists Sivan Beskin (poet and translator), Tom Shoval (filmmaker), Yael Perlov (producer and editor) and Jennifer Abessira (artist and designer of the program’s poster), moderated by film critic and curator Dr. Ariel Schweitzer .
For a full programme of this tribute at Tel Aviv Cinematheque please visit link here.
On the 100th anniversary of the famous lithuanian filmmaker Jonas Mekas, Tokyo University will screen his film works. We will show his long experimental film “Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania” (1972), “Paradise Not Yet Lost, or Oona’s Third Year”(1974), and a short documentary of Jonas Mekas himself about his compatriot and Fluxus-artist George Maciunas, “Zefiro Torna or Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas” (1992). All films are shown in 16mm. Also, a critic, Norio Nishijima will give a lecture on Jonas Mekas.
Jonas Mekas (1922 – 2019) – filmmaker, author, and curator – always said that his works were not political. However, often, the exact opposite was the case. His response to the horrors of the 20th century was to turn to the everyday in an artistic way. He sought an aesthetic form for it in his films, diaries and poems and ascribed it with a force of humanization. The eventful history of the past 100 years is reflected in his work.
On the 100th anniversary of Jonas Mekas’ birth, the program curated by Christoph Gnädig, Christian Hiller and Anne König addresses the political dimensions of his oeuvre. Panels with filmmakers, artists and like-minded peers explore Memories, Displacement, Counter-Culture, Cold and New Wars and the Politics of Everyday. In addition to the program in Cinema 1, political video works by Mekas will be installed in Cinema 2. The program will be expanded on the digital platform arsenal 3 with films by Chantal Akerman, Sergei Loznitsa, and Jonas Mekas. There will also be performative readings by Heike Geißler, Eglė Lukšaitė and Goda Palekaitė. Asia Bazdyrieva will from her Ukrainian war diary.
A celebration of a towering figure in the history of experimental cinema, this screening of select works by filmmaker Jonas Mekas includes one of his most celebrated films “Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania” (1972) as well as the rarely screened “Self Portrait” (1980). Jonas Mekas arrived in New York as a Lithuanian refugee in 1949. He would go on to leave an indelible mark on that city, surrounding himself with a found family of filmmakers and other creatives but his experiences and development as a filmmaker also remained tied to his Lithuanian roots and the journey he made in his youth. His film “Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania” helps trace that journey and the impact it had, a wonderful introduction to his free approach to film. That film is twinned here with the single take interview film Self Portrait.
This screening will be introduced by University College Cork’s Laura Rascaroli, Professor of Film & Screen Media
The event is supported by The Arts Council and the Lithuanian Embassy of Ireland
Jonas Mekas’ cinematic document of the Living Theatre’s anti-war performance became his most overtly political film. “The Brig” (1964) won the Grand Prize for best documentary at the Venice Film Festival later that year.
Join e-flux Screening Room and hear an introduction by Andrew Uroskie (Stony Brook University).
