ken jacobs film artist dead 1234755856
Ken Jacobs, a pioneering experimental filmmaker who blurred the lines between cinema and visual art, died at 92 in New York from kidney failure, according to his son, filmmaker Azazel Jacobs. A key figure in the postwar New York underground scene alongside Jack Smith and Jonas Mekas, Jacobs challenged conventional filmmaking through works like "Blonde Cobra" (1963) and "Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son" (1969), which employed techniques such as live radio accompaniment, slow motion, and looping. He studied painting under Abstract Expressionist Hans Hofmann and described his filmic work as "Abstract Expressionist cinema," often drawing direct parallels between the two mediums. In recent years, his films were widely exhibited in New York museums, including a 2023 acquisition of 212 works by MoMA and a current showing at the Whitney Museum's "Sixties Surreal" exhibition.
