- MUAC

Jonas Mekas is one of the mythical figures of American experimental cinema, part of a group of artists who revolutionized filmmaking in the 1960s. This exhibition presents a wide selection of his most significant film works, together with video installations and photographs, and reveals Mekas’ working methods, which are strongly rooted in the idea of the “film diary”, not only as a subject of the work but also as a format that suggests a specific working discipline.  Mekas starts out from the relationship with his own life, surroundings and memory, reflected in short film clips – fragments that emulate the connection between memory and time – or using longer sequences that interweave a personal and contextual narrative, edited at different stages of his life. Mekas uses the film diary as a means of poetic exploration, in which he narrates his own life on the basis of images and text, using everyday events to make sense of it.

A significant part of his work reflects the intense cultural activity of the 1960s and 1970s, and in particular the artistic scene in New York. It bears witness to collaboration between poets, musicians and artists, born not only from common interests but from intuition and friendship. The work of Jonas Mekas presents a film manifesto that raises the question: what should cinema be? It is a cinema that emerges and unfolds wholly apart from the film industry and the financial and ideological interests of Hollywood.

 - MUAC

Artist: Jonas Mekas (Lituania, 1922)
Curators: Serpentine Gallery y MUAC 
Associate curator: Amanda de la Garza

Exhibition organized by Serpentine Gallery, in London and MUAC
A co-producction with FICUNAM