January2023
13
Publication of "A Companion To Mekas Walden" by Scott Hammen
Publication
France
Publication
France

“A Companion to Mekas Walden” is an in-depth guide to Jonas Mekas’s film masterpiece. It is designed to enrich the viewer’s journey through the cultural ferment of New York City in the 1960s explored by Mekas’s film.

When Mekas’s “Diaries, Notes and Sketches” also known as “Walden”, premiered in New York in 1969, it opened a new chapter in the history of artists’ film. A new generation suddenly discovered that the film medium was not reserved for the commercial entertainment industry.

And at the same time “Walden” was also an invaluable record of a time and place that was the nexus of multiple forms of American art – including music, painting, dance, theater, and poetry. As critic Amy Taubin wrote: “Whenever people ask me what it was like to live in New York in the ’60s, I refer them to Mekas’s Walden…”