Ken Jacobs
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.
Known For
Credits
- 2022 · Please Leave a Message: Anthology Film Archives Voicemails Through the Ages as
- 2022 · Fragments of Paradise as Self
- 2016 · Reminiscences of Jonas Mekas as
- 2013 · What Is Cinema? as Self
- 2012 · Emma's Dilemma as Himself
- 2011 · Sleepless Nights Stories as Self
- 2011 · Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film as Himself
- 2011 · Cinematic Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J.L. Guerin as Himself
- 2010 · Santos Dumont: Pré-Cineasta? as Himself
- 2010 · Lavender as Self
- 2008 · Momma's Man as Dad
- 2007 · 365 Day Project as
- 2007 · Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis as Self
- 2004 · Star Spangled to Death as Oscar Friendly / Ringmaster / Janitor
- 2002 · Shorts From the Underground as himself
- 2000 · As I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty as Self
- 1997 · Birth of a Nation as Self
- 1994 · Jonas in the Desert as Self
- 1991 · Quartet Number One as
- 1986 · He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life as Self (archive footage)
- 1985 · Home Movies 1971-81 as
- 1976 · Lost, Lost, Lost as Self
- 1968 · Huge Pupils as Himself
- 1968 · Diaries, Notes, and Sketches as Self
- 1967 · Bill's Hat as
- 1963 · Blonde Cobra as
- 1962 · Scotch Tape as