Our great artist friend Jonas Mekas passed away

Jonas Mekas was considered one of the most influential protagonists of experimental film since the 1960s. The ZKM and Peter Weibel commemorate the »godfather« of avant-garde cinema. He died on 23 January 2019 at the age of 96.

In July 2014, Jonas Mekas personally opened his large installation, the »Jonas Mekas. 365 Day Project« at the ZKM, encompassing 52 monitors. In an interview at the time, he said: »I was only filming, filming, filming ...«

»I met him at many festivals since the early 1970s. Our encounters were based on mutual esteem. When I visited him in New York in the building of his Anthology Film Archive, I shared his enthusiasm for the treasures he showed me and occasionally gave me. The highlight was the exhibition 'Jonas Mekas. 365 Day Project', with which the ZKM celebrated a retrospective of his outstanding work in 2014. On 56 monitors, one monitor per week, we showed his cinematic diaries, supplemented by multi-channel installations. Jonas was very, very happy about this.«

Peter Weibel on Jonas Mekas

About the artist

Jonas Mekas was a film director, writer and curator. Escaped from Lithuania in World War II, Mekas first stranded in a labour camp near Hamburg and then in a refugee reception camp near Mainz. In 1949 Mekas emigrated to America and a short time later bought a Bolex camera with which he captured moments of his life. Due to various events he discovered the avant-garde film for himself and began to make films himself from 1953 - and soon became a key figure of the New American Cinema.