KJ
Ken Jacobs
Actor, Director, Editor, Producer, Writer, Additional Credits
Born May 25, 1933Died October 5, 2025 (92 years)
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.
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.
Ken Jacobs Filmography
| 2024 | Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse · as Self |
| 2022 | Fragments of Paradise · as Self |
| 2013 | What Is Cinema? · as Self |
| 2012 | Out-Takes from the Life of a Happy Man · as Self |
| 2011 | Sleepless Nights Stories · as Self |
| 2011 | Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film · as Himself |
| 2011 | Correspondence Jonas Mekas - J.L Guerin · as Himself |
| 2006 | |
| 2001 | Short circuit (TV Series) · as Self |
| 2000 | |
| 1998 | Divine Trash · as Self |
| 1994 | Jonas in the Desert · as Self |
| 1986 | He Stands in the Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life · as Self (archive Footage) |
| 1985 | American Masters (TV Series) · as Self - Filmmaker |
| 1983 | Birth of a Nation · as Self |
| 1976 | Lost, Lost, Lost · as Self |
| 1972 | Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania · as Self |
| 1968 | Diaries Notes and Sketches · as Self |
| 2008 | Momma's Man · as Dad |
| 2007 | The Whirled · as Cast |
| 2004 | Star Spangled to Death · as Oscar Friendly / Ringmaster / Janitor |
| 1991 | |
| 1973 | |
| 1963 |
| 2005 | |
| 1986 | Perfect Film · as Executive Producer |
| 1969 |
| 2004 | Star Spangled to Death · as Cinematographer |
| 1969 | Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son · as Cinematographer |