Ken Jacobs

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.

Directed

1. Blonde Cobra (1963) — Director
2. Little Stabs at Happiness (1963) — Director
3. Capitalism: Slavery (2007) — Director
4. Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son (1969) — Director
5. Star Spangled to Death (2004) — Director
6. Celestial Subway Lines/Salvaging Noise (2005) — Director
7. The Georgetown Loop (1996) — Director
8. 60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero (2011) — Director
9. Seeking the Monkey King (2011) — Director
10. Flo Rounds a Corner (1999) — Director
11. Window (1964) — Director
12. Razzle Dazzle: The Lost World (2007) — Director
13. Canopy (2014) — Director
14. New York Ghetto Fishmarket 1903 (2007) — Director
15. Capitalism: Child Labor (2007) — Director
16. Orchard Street (1955) — Director
17. Two Wrenching Departures (2006) — Director
18. Windbreaker (2017) — Director
19. Jonas Mekas in Kodachrome Days (2009) — Director
20. Perfect Film (1985) — Director
21. The Guests (2014) — Director
22. Mountaineer Spinning (2004) — Director
23. Opening the Nineteenth Century: 1896 (1991) — Director
24. Keaton's Cops (1991) — Director
25. Anaglyph Tom (Tom with Puffy Cheeks) (2008) — Director
26. The Death of P'town (1961) — Director
27. Globe (1969) — Director
28. The Discovery (2008) — Director
29. For Life, Against the War (1967) — Director
30. Circling Zero: Part One, We See Absence (2002) — Director
31. Chronometer (1990) — Director
32. Changing Azazel (1973) — Director
33. Titles (2007) — Director
34. Rain Clouds (2020) — Director
35. Turbulent Waters (2011) — Director
36. Double Wow (2021) — Director
37. Urban Peasants (1975) — Director
38. A Primer in Sky Socialism (2013) — Director
39. Joys of Waiting for the Broadway Bus #2 (2013) — Director
40. Abstract Eternalism (2021) — Director

Also appeared in

1. As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty (2000) — Self
2. Blonde Cobra (1963)
3. Diaries, Notes, and Sketches (1968) — Self
4. What Is Cinema? (2013) — Self
5. Lost, Lost, Lost (1976) — Self
6. Scotch Tape (1962)
7. Momma's Man (2008) — Dad
8. Free Radicals: A History of Experimental Film (2011) — Himself
9. Cinematic Correspondences: Jonas Mekas - J.L. Guerin (2011) — Himself
10. Star Spangled to Death (2004) — Oscar Friendly / Ringmaster / Janitor
11. He Stands in a Desert Counting the Seconds of His Life (1986) — Self (archive footage)
12. Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis (2007) — Self
13. Sleepless Nights Stories (2011) — Self
14. Horizons (1973)
15. Jonas in the Desert (1994) — Self
16. Fragments of Paradise (2022) — Self
17. Birth of a Nation (1997) — Self
18. Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse (2025) — Self
19. Quartet Number One (1991)
20. 365 Day Project (2007) — Self
21. Emma's Dilemma (2012) — Himself
22. Santos Dumont: Pré-Cineasta? (2010) — Himself
23. Lavender (2010) — Self
24. Home Movies 1971-81 (1985)
25. Please Leave a Message: Anthology Film Archives Voicemails Through the Ages (2022)
26. Huge Pupils (1968) — Himself
27. Shorts From the Underground (2002) — Self
28. Bill's Hat (1967)
29. Reminiscences of Jonas Mekas (2016)
30. Nervous Ken (2003)
31. Art-House America: Austin Film Society (2023) — Self
32. The Eternal Courtship (2013)
33. Ken Jacobs - from Orchard Street to the Museum of Modern Art (2023) — Self
34. Notes on the Buffalo Conference: “Autobiography in American Independent Cinema” (1973)
35. Up the Illusion (2023)
36. Cyclopean 3D: Life with a Beautiful Woman (2011)
37. Flo and Ken Jacobs (2001)