JONAS MEKAS EXHIBITION ATTENDED BY ALMOST 46 THOUSAND VISITORS
The Serpentine Gallery Jonas Mekas exhibition ran for seven weeks and four days in total over the Christmas period, and was attended by 45,947 visitors (averaging at 867 visitors per day). The exhibition contextualised Mekas’ work across a revolutionary period of film making spanning six decades, showing a range of works including a never before seen 68-minute film commissioned by the Serpentine. Despite being such an important figure in the history of avant-garde cinema, the Serpentine Gallery’s exhibition of Mekas’ work was his first solo exhibition in a public institution in the UK. The exhibition presented his work to a new audience, providing an insight into his seminal contribution to his field as well as emphasising his continued practice.
The Serpentine Gallery sent out 2,500 releases about Jonas Mekas to our press contacts. The Gallery also sent out an email newsletter advertising the exhibition which reached approximately 34,000 with information on the show. The Serpentine’s publicity bulletin, a printed booklet with information on this show in the context of our full programme, was also distributed to 25,000 people.
Both the Serpentine Gallery audience and the press reacted extremely positively towards Jonas Mekas. A clear indication of the interest the exhibition generated can be seen in the number of visitors to the Serpentine Gallery website’s page advertising the exhibition. The Jonas Mekas page and the events and talks programmed around it received 31,489 unique page views.
The exhibition was covered in more than 127 articles in print and the web: Mekas, his work and his story truly captivated the British press and public alike, who discovered this artist, in many cases, simultaneously, despite Mekas’ significance to his field and his fame in the USA and France particularly. The Guardian concluded that Mekas is ‘a vital presence in the alternative film world’, calling Jonas Mekas ‘Exhibition of the week’: ‘The film-maker Jonas Mekas has been a hero of the New York art scene since the 1960s. He is…an artist who has truly shaped our time’. Likewise, excellent reviews poured in from The Daily Telegraph who described the show as a ‘delightful introduction’ to Mekas’ work. The Serpentine’s new film commission, ‘Outtakes from the Life of a Happy Man - the central immersive installation – is profoundly moving’ wrote the Financial Times, ‘These random scenes from his life have a Proustian feel, as his children play in fields steeped in sunshine, or we look down from a plane on to the Baltic Sea. The Independent expanded on this thinking suggesting, ‘it is possibly as poems that these very late works should be taken: elegies without a sense of loss, the autobiography of an extraordinary man in love with the ordinary’. The show had a wide appeal with The Evening Standard making the point that ‘Mekas is in part a social and cultural chronicler but in this show those grand narratives emerge from what is essentially a huge and genuinely moving self-portrait’. The features and reviews covering the exhibition expressed just how touching the show was in its poetic commentary on the (un)remarkable stuff of the everyday – their symbolism of the human condition – with many reviews written of the show in the same vein as Mekas’ lyrical Love Letter to New York.
JONAS MEKAS IN THE UK MEDIA:
Jonas Mekas: 'A man possessed' TODAY Programme, Saturday 8 December 2012 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p011cftj
Interview on BBC World Service http://www.standard.co.uk/arts/visual-arts/jonas-mekas-serpentine-gallery--review-8392622.html
4-star review in Evening Standard http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/dec/10/video-art-andywarhol
Guardian Review by Adrian Searle If it moved, Jonas Mekas shot itThe Times, Monday 10 December 2012
Art Review: Jonas Mekas @ Serpentine Gallery Londonist, Monday 10 December 2012 Jonas Mekas, Serpentine Gallery, London The Independent on Sunday, Sunday 9 December 2012
Jonas Mekas, Serpentine Gallery - review London Evening Standard, Friday 7 December 2012
Cinema's accidental witness Financial Times, Friday 7 December 2012
Exhibition of the week The Guardian, Friday 7 December 2012
Memories for the future: Mark Webber on Jonas Mekas BFI, Thursday 6 December 2012
Jonas Mekas, Serpentine Gallery, 4 stars The Independent, Thursday 6 December 2012
Matthew Sweet interviews Jonas Mekas on Night Waves BBC Radio Three, Wednesday 5 December 2012
AnOther Thing I Wanted to Tell You | Jonas Mekas on Filmmaking AnOther Magazine, Wednesday 5 December 2012
A Happy Man: Jonas Mekas [featuring an exclusive clip from his feature-length film, Outtakes From the Life of a Happy Man] NOWNESS, Wednesday 5 December 2012
Richard Dorment's four-star review of Jonas Mekas, Serpentine Gallery The Daily Telegraph, Monday 3 December 2012
At Work: Jonas Mekas PORT, Monday 3 December 2012
Jonas Mekas: the man who inspired Andy Warhol to make films The Observer, Sunday 1 December 2012
Filmmaker Jonas Mekas On Poetry, Ordinary Moments, And Turning 90 For MOCAtv (VIDEO) Huffington Post, Saturday 30 November 2012
Benn Northover interviewing Jonas Mekas AnOther Magazine, Wednesday 28 November 2012
UPCOMING: JONAS MEKAS AT THE SERPENTINE Hunger TV, Monday 19 November 2012
The best art shows to see over Christmas 2012 The Guardian, Sunday 4 November 2012
Hans Ulrich Obrist recommends Jonas Mekas' Walden Electronic Beats, Tuesday 10 April 2012
JONAS MEKAS IN THE LITHUANIAN MEDIA:
Lietuvos žinios: http://www.lzinios.lt/Svietimas-ir-kultura/J.Meko-Kaledos-Paryziuje-ir-Londone
Bernardinai: http://www.bernardinai.lt/straipsnis/2012-12-05-jono-meko-kuryba-pristatoma-londone/91803
