Person
Ken Jacobs
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, USA
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 rec…
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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.
Filmography
Movies and shows, newest first
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2026
Downtown Loft with Skylights
Movie Director
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2026
A Date with Shirley
Movie Director
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2026
BOOK OF ETERNALISMS 43
Movie Director
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2026
BOOK OF ETERNALISMS 41
Movie Director
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2026
BOOK OF ETERNALISMS 42
Movie Director
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2025
BOOK OF ETERNALISMS 40
Movie Director
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2025
Book of Eternalisms 39
Movie Director
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2025
Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse
Movie Self
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2025
BMT
Movie Director
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2024
Riverbed
Movie Director
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2024
Tourists of the Familiar 70
Movie Director
- 2023
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2023
Book of Eternalisms 8
Movie Director
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2023
Book of Eternalisms 7
Movie Director
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2023
For James Otis
Movie Director
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2023
Art-House America: Austin Film Society
Movie Self
More credits
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2023
Up the Illusion
Movie
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2023
Writhing City
Movie Director
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2023
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Movie Director
- 2023
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2023
Other Urban Lives
Movie Director
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2023
Book of Eternalisms 1-6
Movie Director
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2023
Spasm
Movie Director
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2023
Tourists of the Familiar 1
Movie Director
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2023
Tourists of the Familiar 5
Movie Director
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2023
Tourists of the Familiar 15
Movie Director
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2023
Tourists of the Familiar 20
Movie Director
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2023
Tourists of the Familiar 10
Movie Director
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2023
Hobgoblin Ball
Movie Director
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2023
Whims of Twenty Twenty-Three
Movie Director
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2023
Manhattan is an Island
Movie Director
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2022
Real Action Figures
Movie Director
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2022
When Timofeev Moves Everything Moves
Movie Director
- 2022
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2022
Fragments of Paradise
Movie Self
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2022
Sergei Eisenstein Embossed
Movie Director
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2022
Buster Keaton Embossed
Movie Director
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2022
One Dozen Roses
Movie Director
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2022
America Lets Her Hair Down 1905
Movie Director
- 2022
