Spike Jonze

Spike Jonze (b. 1969, Rockville) has earned a reputation as one of today’s most daring and innovative filmmakers. Jonze (born Adam Spiegel) began his career making commercials and photographing skateboarders for Transworld Skateboarding magazine. In addition to contributing dynamic skate footage to the video for Sonic Youth’s 100% in 1992, he has also directed several skate videos, including Blind Skateboards’ Video Days (1991) and Lakai Footwear’s Fully Flared (2007). Co-owner of Girl Skateboards, Jonze has also made promos for numerous music releases, most famously the Beastie Boys’ Sabotage and Björk’s It’s Oh So Quiet.

Jonze has also directed three critically acclaimed features: the dark comedies Being John Malkovich (1999) and Adaptation (2002) and, in collaboration with Dave Eggers, a live-action reinterpretation of Maurice Sendak’s children’s classic Where the Wild Things Are (2009). All of these projects are marked by an interest in fractured narrative and ironic, absurdist wit. Jonze was also a co-founder of the Sassy magazine spinoff for boys, Dirt, and is co-creator and executive producer of MTV’s Jackass.


Art in the Streets, the first major historical exhibition of graffiti and street art organized by an American museum, surveys the origins and history of the movement in the United States and traces its influence as it spread around the world. Privacy Policy