A retrospective devoted to Jonas Mekas's 70-year activity within and beyond the history of avant-garde cinema.
Through a wide selection of works from the 1960s to the late 2010s, this catalogue aims to read the Lithuanian filmmaker's work as a Dantesque journey leading to happiness, from the infernos of history, through a daily exercise in filmmaking. The title is a quote taken from the film Out-takes From the Life of a Happy Man, in which the artist's voice-over reflects to himself, "Memories are past, but images are here, and images are real!"
Completing the volume are a collection of texts by Francesco Urbano Ragazzi, Hollis Melton, P. Adams Sitney, Ieva Jasinskaite, and Philipp Scheid.
"Jonas Mekas lived far more than a life, not just because he turned the one it fell to him to live into the daily medium of his cinema but also because if we set all the events in his life in a row, we get the impression that Jonas lived many more lives than just one. Born in Biržai, Lithuania, in 1922 and raised in the neighboring village of Semeniškiai, Mekas began at a very early age to write poetry and to keep a diary, two literary genres that were to mark his destiny as a filmmaker but not only as that. He began to pen pieces for the culture pages of two local magazines while still in his teens, but in the meantime World War II had broken out and Lithuania was occupied militarily, first by the Soviet Union (1940–41) and then by Nazi Germany..."
– Francesco Urbano Ragazzi
Published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition curated by Francesco Urbano Ragazzi at Mattatoio, Roma, in 2022-2023.
Born in Semeniškiai (Lithuania), Jonas Mekas (1922-2019) bought his first Bolex camera on his arrival in New York in 1949 and began to record moments of daily life. He was the village voice columnist for the “Movie Journal”. He set up and was the editor of
Film Culture magazine with his brother
Adolfas Mekas, and founded the Film-Makers' Cooperative and Anthology Film Archives. His work later inspired many artists and film makers, such as Jim Jarmush, Martin Scorsese, who recognised his influence. Mekas's
films and archive material have been exhibited extensively throughout the world: Documenta 11; the Venice Biennale 2005; MoMA PS1, New York; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Baltic Art Center, Visby; the Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, etc.
Edited by Francesco Urbano Ragazzi.
Texts by Francesco Urbano Ragazzi, Hollis Melton, P. Adams Sitney, Ieva Jasinskaite, Philipp Scheid.
published in March 2023
bilingual edition (English / Italian)
19 x 27,5 cm (softcover)
224 pages (ill.)
ISBN : 978-88-99776-38-1
EAN : 9788899776381
sold out
