In sight

The Jewish Museum
From February 18 to June 5, 2022
New York

Since the 1950s, Jonas Mekas (1922-2019) carried a camera by his side. Almost like an extension of his body, he documented his experience as a refugee from Lithuania after World War II, his integration into New York’s avant-garde artistic circles and his transformation into the greatest champion of independent cinema. in the United States as the first full-length film critical time for the Voice of the village and one of the founders of Anthology Film Archives. In his act of filming, Mekas meticulously captured the poetry of everyday life as he experienced it – spring flower bulbs, intimate weddings, dinner with friends or sunset on the beach. Jonas Mekas: The camera was still rolling at The Jewish Museum situates the artist’s journey as the impetus of his lifelong search for joy through the lens of the camera in a moving, nuanced and current presentation of Mekas’ work.

Born in Semeniškiai, Lithuania, Jonas Mekas and his brother Adolfus fled their country in 1944 for fear of being arrested by the Nazis for their involvement in resistance activities. Although their family was not Jewish, during their escape the Mekas brothers were interned in a Nazi labor camp near Hamburg, and after the end of the war they passed through the displaced persons camps until that they were allowed to come to the United States in 1949 as refugees. Arriving in America with nothing to his name, Mekas settled in the Lithuanian diaspora of Brooklyn and bought a 16mm camera. On display, Lost, lost, lost (1976) brings Mekas’ experience of exile to the fore through black and white images he took of his community. Here, the beginnings of his diaristic tendencies are apparent, but there is also an apparent distance, with Mekas playing the role of the documentarian estranged from his own culture due to the devastating war.

Yes Lost, lost, lostrepresents the moved beginnings of the artist, Walden (1969), a landmark film that established his 16mm newspaper style, documents his integration into the New York art landscape. We see Mekas mingling with the most famous artists and poets of the 1960s, from Allen Ginsberg to Andy Warhol, even filming Bed-In for Peace by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Both films are typically three hours long, a potentially grueling prospect for visiting the museum’s galleries. In a decision inspired by curator Kelly Taxter, parts of each film are divided and projected simultaneously on equally sized and staggered screens, cutting by Walden runtime to thirty minutes, creating a more accessible viewing experience. Seeing parts of each film played synchronously from multiple projectors allows Mekas’ images to combine in new ways, connecting moments in the artist’s life through time that otherwise wouldn’t be possible in one set. of traditional theatre.

In Walden, Mekas’ aesthetic principles are defined: freehand rhythmic sequences of life as he experienced it in flickering frame rates and poetic stop motion sequences, overexposed film, ambient noise mixed with reflections of the artist through narration and text maps, and the beautiful chromatic materiality of 16mm film. In one scene, the artist points the camera downward, recording himself enjoying a hot drink and a croissant outdoors while sharing his food with stray cats. The sound of Mekas playing the accordion as he sings “I’m not looking for anything, I’m happy” is superimposed. The endlessly endearing sequence epitomizes the joyful nature of Mekas’ films, but there’s a slightly dark undertone. One wonders if the artist is looking for nothing because, like stray cats, he has no home to turn to.

As I moved forward occasionally, I saw brief glimpses of beauty (2000), the accumulation of images of Mekas taken in the 20th century, is the artist’s articulation of his new home following a move. The film’s original runtime of nearly five hours is divided into thirty-minute chunks, simultaneously illuminating three decades of the artist’s life on twelve bright screens. In a tender image, Mekas captures his ex-wife photographing their child as her elderly father takes a picture behind her, indicating Mekas’ urge to preserve the cycle of life in its initial, middle and final stages. Even as Mekas celebrates precious moments in his adopted country, his sense of loss is seen through the narration and intertitles, one reading, “a man whose lip still quivers with pain and grief experienced in the past.” .

Requiem (2019) is the last film directed by Mekas before his death at age 96. Here, the artist has moved to digital video in addition to analog, and the difference in medium reflects a change in content. There are snippets of natural disasters in the news – a fire in Queens, an earthquake in Japan. The artist’s warm narration also gets off to a noticeable start, with a symphonic soundtrack that continues. The viewer is left with a reminder of the cyclically unstable nature of the world, that the tragedies Mekas experienced in his youth persist today.

Requiem does not, however, indulge in pessimism: instead, Mekas’ video focuses on silent contemplation in both form and tone. And despite the introduction of new elements, the motifs of his previous films are apparent. Beautiful long shots of ordinary flowers in pots, flowers on trees or bouquets in a convenience store primarily occupy the work – a meditation on the fleeting, everyday brilliance of the world. Having lived a life of hectic joy through Mekas’ images and effervescent voice, I was moved by the dynamism of the artist’s poetics, which simultaneously addresses the wonder and pain of existence. The trauma of his displacement is evident throughout the exhibit, which, while still relevant, seems particularly relevant with Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine, echoing the conflict that left Mekas a refugee in 1944. that there is no answer to overcome the difficulties of exile, Jonas Mekas powerfully shows us the ability of art to alleviate this grief with his relentless pursuit of beauty and ecstasy in the image moving.