James Fuentes LLC is pleased to announce the inaugural exhibition of the gallery’s new location: To New York With Love, a solo exhibition by Jonas Mekas.

Two new works will be featured, Orchard Street (2010) & World Trade Center Haikus (2010). The artist writes about each piece:

“For three years, 1953-1956, Orchard Street was my home. I loved its crowded, bustling existence. The footage in this installation, with the exception of brief images of myself and my brother Adolfas, comes from the year 1975, many years later, but the street hadn’t yet changed during the interval of years since I had lived there, on 95 Orchard Street. Change came many years later… “

“Looking through my finished and unfinished films, I was surprised how many glimpses of the World Trade Center I caught during my life in SoHo. I had a feeling I was Hokusai glimpsing Mount Fuji. Only that it was the World Trade Center. The WTC was an inseparable part of my and my family’s life during my SoHo period from 1975-1995. This installation is my love poem to it. My method in constructing this piece was simply to pull out images of the WTC from my original footage, while including some of the surrounding scenes. The result I felt came close, albeit indirectly, to what in poetry is known as the Haiku.”

Mekas will present a solo exhibition, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, in 2011 at The Serpentine Gallery, London. Recently Mekas presented solo museum exhibitions at Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2008); Fondazione Ragghianti, Lucca (2008); MoMA PS1, New York (2007); and the Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2005). He represented Lithuania in the 2007 Venice Biennale. Later this month the artist will be featured in the 29th São Paulo Biennial.