December 2, 2025, 7pm
https://www.e-flux.com/events/6783296/an-evening-for-allen-ginsberg-a-screening-reading-and-performance
Join us at e-flux Screening Room for an evening dedicated to Allen Ginsberg, bringing together a live performance, poetry reading, and screening of two works by Jonas Mekas, the 1997 Scenes from Allen’s Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit along with an untitled video portrait of Ginsberg. Guest-curated by Conor Williams, the evening reflects on how Ginsberg’s voice continues to move across music, cinema, and contemporary literary and artistic communities.
The program will open with a live performance of Ginsberg’s punk composition “Capitol Air,” interpreted by Emily Greenberg, Daniel Cooke, and Williams. Written in the early 1980s and later performed with The Clash, the song underscores Ginsberg’s presence as both poet and musician. The performance will be followed by Ginsberg’s poems read by Hannah Beerman, Lynne Sachs, Terrence Arjoon, and A. S. Hamrah. The program will conclude with a screening of two works by Jonas Mekas: Scenes from Allen’s Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit, filmed at Ginsberg’s East Village loft in the days immediately following his death in April 1997; along with an additional video portrait of Ginsberg by Mekas, bridging footage recorded with Ginsberg in 1987 and Mekas’s reflections in 1997.
Films
Jonas Mekas, Scenes from Allen’s Last Three Days on Earth as a Spirit (1997, 66 minutes)
A video record of the Buddhist Wake ceremony at Allen Ginsberg’s flat. One can see Ginsberg, now asleep forever, in his bed; some of his close friends; the wrapping up and removal of his body, and the final farewell at the Buddhist temple. Mekas also describes his last conversation with Ginsberg.
Jonas Mekas, Untitled Ginsberg video (1997, 22 minutes)
Allen Ginsberg records Jonas Mekas, his wife Hollis Melton, and son Sebastian Mekas in their loft apartment.