Ken Jacobs
Biography
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.
Personal Details
Also Known As
Movies (50)
Book of Eternalisms 39
Director (Directing)
2025
Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse
as Self
2025
Ken Jacobs - from Orchard Street to the Museum of Modern Art
as Self
2023
Art-House America: Austin Film Society
as Self
2023
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Director (Directing)
2023
Up the Illusion
Director (Directing)
2023
Writhing City
Director (Directing)
2023
From Introduction to Orson Welles’s Falstaff: Chimes at Midnight
Director (Directing)
2023
Other Urban Lives
Director (Directing)
2023
Book of Eternalisms 1-6
Director (Directing)
2023
Spasm
Director (Directing)
2023
Whims of Twenty Twenty-Three
Director (Directing)
2023
Tourists of the Familiar 1
Director (Directing)
2023
Tourists of the Familiar 5
Director (Directing)
2023
Tourists of the Familiar 10
Director (Directing)
2023
Tourists of the Familiar 15
Director (Directing)
2023
Tourists of the Familiar 20
Director (Directing)
2023
Real Action Figures
Director (Directing)
2022
When Timofeev Moves Everything Moves
Director (Directing)
2022
Please Leave a Message: Anthology Film Archives Voicemails Through the Ages
2022
Fragments of Paradise
as Self
2022
Sergei Eisenstein Embossed
Director (Directing)
2022
Buster Keaton Embossed
Director (Directing)
2022
One Dozen Roses
Director (Directing)
2022
America Let's Her Hair Down 1905
Director (Directing)
2022
Eternal Beach
Director (Directing)
2021
Abstract Eternalism
Director (Directing)
2021
Double Wow
Director (Directing)
2021
XCXHXEXRXRXIXEXSX
Editor (Editing)
2021
Cartoonish 1-10
Director (Directing)
2021
A Small Misunderstanding
Director (Directing)
2021
Adventures of Cookie Truck
Director (Directing)
2021
Hoffman Student
Director (Directing)
2021
Aspiring To Music
Director (Directing)
2021
Movie That Invites Pausing
Director (Directing)
2020
Storefront
Director (Directing)
2020
Transparent Apartments
Director (Directing)
2020
Spiky
Director (Directing)
2020
Municipal Building Passage
Director (Directing)
2020
Clouds and Trees
Director (Directing)
2020
Bandit
Director (Directing)
2020
Hubble II
Director (Directing)
2020
Whirlpool
Director (Directing)
2020
Halley’s Comet
Director (Directing)
2020
Water Balloon
Director (Directing)
2020
Spaceworks
Director (Directing)
2020
Another Day in Days of Yore
Director (Directing)
2020
Garage Wall
Director (Directing)
2020
Period Piece
Director (Directing)
2020
Street Commerce II
Director (Directing)
2020