I Had Nowhere to Go

At 94, Jonas Mekas, the godfather of American avant-garde cinema, puts himself in the hands of celebrated artist Douglas Gordon, who deploys his sturdy presence, sonorous voice, and actual memoir to evoke life as a Lithuanian refugee dodging fate during World War II. Gordon affects this history of fear, deprivation, ingenuity, and survival, sometimes with odd intercut images and alternatively with what some viewers may consider a heavy-handed use of blank, black screens. ‎This unusual tool also acts as a  means to express the weight of this fraught history. This‎ is an experimental, intimate art piece which builds with each sound and vision of Mekas and connotes his stand-up performance practice: lectern-focused, picture-free, autobiographical storytelling.