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.
Jonas Mekas: The Camera Was Always Running
- Institution
- The Jewish Museum
- Grant Cycle
- Spring 2020
- Amount
- $100,000
- Type of Grant
- Exhibition Support
- Website
- thejewishmuseum.org ↗

Jonas Mekas in front of Anthology Film Archives, ND, photo by Hollis Melton

ID photos of Jonas and Adolfas Mekas during their time in Displaced Persons
camps (Top L - Bottom R clockwise: Adolfas Mekas, 1949, Kassel; Adolfas
Mekas ND; Adolfas Mekas 1946; Jonas Mekas, 1948; Jonas Mekas, 1945; Jonas
Mekas 1948; Adolfas Mekas. Flensburg, 1945; Jonas Mekas, 1946; Jonas
Mekas 1947

Verso: ID photos of Jonas and Adolfas Mekas during their time in Displaced
Persons camps

Jonas Mekas's hand transcribed notebook of Poezija by Jonas Kudsa
Aleksandriskis, 1940

Film-makers’ Cinematheque flyer for programs at The Jewish Museum,
December 1968 to February 1969.

Village Voice subscription advertisement featuring Jonas Mekas, 10/12/1972

Stills from Cassis, 1966, 16 mm

Production still from Guns of the Trees, 1962, 35mm

Stills from Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania, 1972, 16 mm

Images Our Of Darkness (number 23), 2012, B/W photograph

Still from Walden, 1968, 16 mm

Still from Letter From Greenpoint, 2004, Video

Still from Requiem, 2019, Video
1963
Warhol begins his foray into innovative, unprecedented filmmaking and starts making silent, moving portraits called Screen Tests.