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.
Filmography (37 titles)
8.7MovieArt Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse
Self · 2025
MovieKen Jacobs - from Orchard Street to the Museum of Modern Art
Self · 2023
MovieArt-House America: Austin Film Society
Self · 2023
MovieUp the Illusion
2023
Please Leave a Message: Anthology Film Archives Voicemails Through the Ages
2022
6.5MovieFragments of Paradise
Self · 2022
MovieReminiscences of Jonas Mekas
2016
6.5MovieWhat Is Cinema?
Self · 2013
MovieThe Eternal Courtship
2013
1.0MovieEmma's Dilemma
Himself · 2012
5.3MovieSleepless Nights Stories
Self · 2011
6.8MovieFree Radicals: A History of Experimental Film
Himself · 2011
7.0MovieCinematic Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J.L. Guerin
Himself · 2011
MovieCyclopean 3D: Life with a Beautiful Woman
2011
5.0MovieSantos Dumont: Pré-Cineasta?
Himself · 2010
MovieLavender
Self · 2010
6.2MovieMomma's Man
Dad · 2008
10.0Movie365 Day Project
Self · 2007
6.6MovieJack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis
Self · 2007
7.7MovieStar Spangled to Death
Oscar Friendly / Ringmaster / Janitor · 2004
MovieNervous Ken
2003
Shorts From the Underground
Self · 2002
Flo and Ken Jacobs
2001
7.7MovieAs I Was Moving Ahead, Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty
Self · 2000
7.0MovieBirth of a Nation
Self · 1997
6.4MovieJonas in the Desert
Self · 1994
7.5MovieQuartet Number One
1991
8.4MovieHe Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life
Self (archive footage) · 1986
MovieHome Movies 1971-81
1985
7.1MovieLost, Lost, Lost
Self · 1976