Jonas Mekas: The Camera Was Always Running will be the first survey in the United States of the poet, filmmaker, and tireless promoter of avant-garde cinema. The exhibition will focus on the intersection of art and exile in the Lithuanian artist’s work, arguing that Mekas’ embrace of art and New York’s creative community was deeply informed by his experience as a refugee. At the museum, the filmmaker’s status as an émigré of the post–World War II generation will be presented as a paradigm for the Jewish experience, as well as a contemporary point of connection to the record numbers of people worldwide now experiencing forced migration.