
Ken Jacobs
Biography
A pioneer of the American film avant-garde of the 1960s and '70s, Ken Jacobs is a central figure in post-war experimental cinema. From his first films of the late 1950s to his recent experiments with digital video, his investigations and innovations have influenced countless artists. A New Yorker by birth, Jacobs graduated from City University to find himself in the midst of the downtown art scene of the 1960s, which included artists Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol, beat writers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac; and the experimental theater troupes of Trisha Brown and Yvonne Rainer. Although Jacobs had studied painting with Hans Hoffman, he quickly gravitated to film, finding kindred spirits in radical filmmakers such as Jonas Mekas and Hollis Frampton. An early friendship with Jack Smith yielded several collaborations, including the seminal underground films Blonde Cobra (which Jonas Mekas dubbed "the masterpiece of Baudelairean cinema") and Little Stabs at Happiness, as well as a Provincetown beach-based live show, The Human Wreckage Review.
Filmografi
About Space and Depth2026 ·
As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty2000 · Self
Home Movies 1971-811985 ·
Santos Dumont: Pré-Cineasta?2010 · Himself
Notes on the Buffalo Conference: “Autobiography in American Independent Cinema”1973 ·
Diaries, Notes, and Sketches1968 · Self
Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse2025 · Self
Jonas in the Desert1994 · Self
Blonde Cobra1963 ·
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis2007 · Self
Birth of a Nation1997 · Self
Reminiscences of Jonas Mekas2016 ·
Up the Illusion2023 ·
Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film2011 · Himself
Art-House America: Austin Film Society2023 · Self
Fragments of Paradise2022 · Self
He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life1986 · Self (archive footage)
365 Day Project2007 · Self
Lost, Lost, Lost1976 · Self
What Is Cinema?2013 · Self
Momma's Man2008 · Dad
Jonas Mekas
Hollis Frampton
Stan Brakhage
Stan VanDerBeek
Paul Sharits
Flo Jacobs
Ed Emshwiller
Peter Kubelka
Valie Export
Jack Smith
Richard Leacock
Otto Muehl