Exhibition of the Week: Jonas Mekas, Serpentine Gallery, London W2
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Your support makes all the difference.Born in Lithuania in 1922, Jonas Mekas is a leading figure of the 20th-century avant-garde. A poet, film-maker and artist, he emigrated to Brooklyn in 1949 after five years in displaced persons camps.
His fragmentary though flowing style of film-making is an exercise in "how to be true with the camera." He is interested in people: "What's real, what's there." Coinciding with seasons of his films at the BFI and Centre Pompidou, this exhibition draws on Mekas' 60-year career.
His films and stills appear contemporary, as though made to be shared on social media; his subject matter is intimate, lyrical but heavy on the hipsterdom.
But is his story as an artist in exile that is most fascinating. Written in a displaced persons camp, Idylls of Semeniskiai (1946) are poems that recall his rural childhood.
They evoke an atmosphere of "shimmering heat," evident too in the later films, when the fields of home are replaced by Central Park.
(020 7402 6075; serpentinegallery.org) to 27 Jan
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