CREMONA.- The artwork Requiem, commissioned by and presented at The Shed, New York City, is a meditative tribute to Verdi’s score for Messa da Requiem, or Catholic funeral Mass, and a reflection on the beauty of the natural world.

Mekas’ Requiem is an unrelenting comment on life on this planet by an artist who, at the age of 96, was well aware of the horrors of the 20th century and dismayed by the events of the 21st. The primary imagery of this work - which is culled from footage shot by the artist over three-decades from his first Sony analog video camcorder to his HD pocket- sized Nikon - is flowers.

Cut flowers, garden flowers, wild flowers, and flowers in bloom on trees, hillsides, fields and elsewhere are accompanied by the sounds of nature and Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa da Requiem. Inter-titles with translations of lined from the Latin funeral Mass sung by the choir are interspersed throughout the work along with other imagery including recordings of TV news reports inspired by themes from the novel “The Betrothed”, a classic of Italian literature set during a time of upheaval and plague by Alessandro Manzoni. For whom Verdi’s “Requiem” was composed.

Artist, poet and director born in Lithuania, Jonas Mekas (1922-2019) was one of the cornerstones of New York’s world-famous independent experimental cinema. A founder of the American avant-grade cinema movement, his works have influenced generations of filmmakers, and have been shown in art exhibitions such as Documenta Kassel, the Venice Biennale, the Serpentine in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Jewish Museum in New York.

Requiem by Jonas Mekas is the first show of 2024 to be held in the XVII-century deconsecrated church of San Carlo in Via Bissolati 33, Cremona. The exhibition will be on view until May the 5th, 2024.

JONAS MEKAS REQUIEM
23 February - 5 May 2024
The Shed, New York City, Cremona, Italy Open by appointment