Biography
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
Cast Credits
Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse
Character: Self
MOVIE • 2025
Art-House America: Austin Film Society
Character: Self
MOVIE • 2023
Please Leave a Message: Anthology Film Archives Voicemails Through the Ages
Character:
MOVIE • 2022
Fragments of Paradise
Character: Self
MOVIE • 2022
Reminiscences of Jonas Mekas
Character:
MOVIE • 2016
Diaries, Notes, and Sketches
Character: Self
MOVIE • 2013
What Is Cinema?
Character: Self
MOVIE • 2013
The Eternal Courtship
Character:
MOVIE • 2013
Emma's Dilemma
Character: Himself
MOVIE • 2012
Sleepless Nights Stories
Character: Self
MOVIE • 2011
Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film
Character: Himself
MOVIE • 2011
Cinematic Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J.L. Guerin
Character: Himself
MOVIE • 2011
Santos Dumont: Pré-Cineasta?
Character: Himself
MOVIE • 2010
Lavender
Character: Self
MOVIE • 2010
Momma's Man
Character: Dad
MOVIE • 2008
365 Day Project
Character:
MOVIE • 2007
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis
Character: Self
MOVIE • 2007
Star Spangled to Death
Character: Oscar Friendly / Ringmaster / Janitor
MOVIE • 2004
Nervous Ken
Character:
MOVIE • 2003
Shorts From the Underground
Character: himself
MOVIE • 2002
Crew
Crew Credits
Up the Illusion
Role: Director
MOVIE • 2023
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Role: Director
MOVIE • 2023
Writhing City
Role: Director
MOVIE • 2023
Other Urban Lives
Role: Director
MOVIE • 2023
From Introduction to Orson Welles’s Falstaff: Chimes at Midnight
Role: Director
MOVIE • 2023
Book of Eternalisms 1-6
Role: Director
MOVIE • 2023
Spasm
Role: Director
MOVIE • 2023
Whims of Twenty Twenty-Three
Role: Director
MOVIE • 2023
Tourists of the Familiar 1
Role: Director
MOVIE • 2023
Tourists of the Familiar 5
Role: Director
MOVIE • 2023
Tourists of the Familiar 10
Role: Director
MOVIE • 2023
Tourists of the Familiar 15
Role: Director
MOVIE • 2023
Tourists of the Familiar 20
Role: Director
MOVIE • 2023
Real Action Figures
Role: Director
MOVIE • 2022
When Timofeev Moves Everything Moves
Role: Director
MOVIE • 2022
Sergei Eisenstein Embossed
Role: Director
MOVIE • 2022
Buster Keaton Embossed
Role: Director
MOVIE • 2022
One Dozen Roses
Role: Director
MOVIE • 2022
America Let's Her Hair Down 1905
Role: Director
MOVIE • 2022
Eternal Beach
Role: Director
MOVIE • 2021