Jonas Mekas

(American/Lithuanian, 1922–2019)

Jonas Mekas is an American-Lithuanian artist and writer known for avant-garde films such as Walden (1969) and Lost, Lost, Lost (1976). “My films are the celebration of reality, of life, of my friends, of actual daily life that passes and is gone tomorrow,” he has explained. Born on December 24, 1922 in Semeniškiai, Lithuania, Mekas and his brother were imprisoned by Nazi soldiers while trying to flee Europe during World War II. The brothers later escaped the camp, and Mekas went on to study philosophy at the University of Mainz after the end of the war. In 1949, the two of them emigrated to Brooklyn as a refugees. To escape their boredom and loneliness in America, they watched as many films as possible, eventually leading Mekas to begin filming scenes from his everyday life. The brothers went on to start the landmark magazine, Film Culture, in 1954. During the 1960s, he fell into a milieu that included figures such as Andy Warhol, Timothy Leary, Hans Richter, Yoko Ono, John Lennon, and Allen Ginsberg, all of whom appeared in at least one of his films. Along with his film archive, Mekas has written over 20 poetry books, and his Lithuanian poetry is considered canonical literature in his native country. The artist continues to live and work in New York, NY.