Joan Jonas

Works

Mirror Piece III1969-2010

C-print

34,3 × 50,8 cm image; 39,4 x 55,9 cm paper 52 x 68,4 cm framed

Reading Dante IV1976/2010

Multimedia installation: 4 videos, 3 wall drawings, 2 tables with plexiglass, 2 benches, 1 chalkboard, 1 hanging lamp, 2 floor lamps, 15 drawings

FUTURE LOT: Reading Dante2008

Video

6' 25"

Mirror Improvisation2005

Single-channel video (color, sounds)

6' 33" looped

Wolf Lights2004-2005

Single-channel video (color, sounds)

2' 49" looped

Untitled from Reanimation performance2014

Ink on paper

74,5 × 105 cm; 82 × 112 × 4 cm framed

Installation View, Joan Jonas: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, The Drawing Center, New York, 2024

Installation View, Joan Jonas: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, The Drawing Center, New York, 2024

Untitled2015

Ink on paper

29,3 × 20,5 cm

Untitled2015

Ink on paper

29 × 20 cm

Untitled2015

Ink on paper

29,5 × 20 cm

Untitled from Reanimation performance2014

Chalk on paper

126 × 106 cm; 134,5 × 113,8 cm framed

Untitled from Reanimation performance2014

Chalk on paper

126 × 106 cm

Installation view, Draw on the wind, 2023, Galleria Raffaella Cortese Milano

Reading Dante III, Philadelphia # 12010

Ink on paper

25 × 32 cm; 29,5 × 36,5 cm framed

Reading Dante III, Philadelphia # 32010

Ink on paper

25 × 32 cm; 29,5 × 36,5 cm framed

Reading Dante III, Philadelphia # 52010

Ink on paper

25 × 32 cm; 29,5 × 36,5 cm framed

Reading Dante III, Philadelphia # 82010

Ink on paper

25 × 32 cm; 29,5 × 36,5 cm framed

Installation view, Joan Jonas: Good Night Good Morning, 2024, The Museum of Modern Art, NY

Installation view, Joan Jonas: Good Night Good Morning, 2024, The Museum of Modern Art, NY

Dia Beacon’s lower-level galleries, Beacon, NY, USA

They Come to Us Without a Word II, Biennale di Venezia, 2015

Hangar Bicocca, Joan Jonas, Reanimation, Hangar Bicocca, Milano, 2014

Performance drawing from Moving Off the Land2017

Oil stick on paper

75,6 × 56 cm; 82 × 62 × 3,3 cm framed

Joan Jonas, Moving Off the Land II, Ocean Space, Chiesa di San Lorenzo, Venice, 2019

Biography

Joan Jonas was born in 1936 in New York, where she lives and works.
She works with Galleria Raffaella Cortese since 2009.

Jonas is one of the most significant artists in the history of video and performance. Beginning in the 1960s, she placed female subjectivity at the center of her work, employing a complex linguistic repertoire including gestures, storytelling and images in movement.

A tireless experimenter, Jonas explores the possibilities inherent to the interdisciplinary nature of art, a characteristic that has made her a point of reference for a young generation of artists. Over time, she has established an intense relationship of exchange in collaborations with visual artists such as Peter Campus and Richard Serra, the performer Ragani Haas and musicians Alvin Curran and Jason Moran. The continuous renewal and transpositions of the media Jonas experiments with sources from fairy tales to essays, from myths to local folklore and relate newly to contemporary life, both poetically and politically.

Institutions that have hosted solo shows by Joan Jonas include: The Drawing Center, New York (2024); The Museum of Modern Art, New York,(2024); Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany (2022); Dia Art Foundation, Beacon, New York (2021); Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain (2020); Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, San Paolo, Brasil (2020); Kyoto City University of Arts, Kyoto, Japan, organized by Inamori Foundation (2019); Fundação de Serralves, Porto, Portugal (2019); Tate Modern, London, UK (2018); Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston (2017); NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, Singapore (2016); Fundacion Botin, Santander, Spain (2016); HangarBicocca, Milan, Italy (2014); Sigmund Freud Museum, Wien, Austria (2006); Le Plateau e Jeu de Paume / Hotel de Sully, Paris, France (2005); Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, Chicago (2004); Queens Museum of Art, New York (2003); Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany (2000); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands (1994).

Her work has been included in group exhibitions such as: Rewilding, Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel (2024);

Paraventi, Fondazione Prada, Milan (2023); Dueto, Galeria Municipal do Porto, Porto (2023); Nature. Fields. Memory, Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel (2023);  Chronic Desire – Chronic Hunger, Timisoara European Capital of Culture, Timisoara, Romania (2023); Prelude. Poetic Intention, MACBA, Barcelona (2022), Exodus and Communal Life, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid (2022); The Imperament Display II, LUMA Foundation, Arles, France (2022); AQUARIA. Or the Illusion of a Boxed Sea, MAAT, Lisbon, Portugal (2021); The Paradox of Stillness: Art, Object, and Performance, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota (2021); The Unexpected Subject. 1978 Art and Feminism in Italy, FM Centre for Contemporary Art, Milan, Italy (2019); The Long Run, MoMA The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2017); DO DISTURB, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2015). Among other institution that shown works by Joan Jonas: The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain (2010); La Biennale di Venezia (2009), Venice, Italy; Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain (2009); Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy (2006); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain (2006); Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, Chicago (2004); P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2003); Whitney Museum Of American Art, New York (2001); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1995).

In 2015 Jonas represented the United States at the 56th Venice Biennale. She has taken part in Documenta V, VI, VII, VIII, XI, XIII in Kassel, Germany. In 2018 the artist received the prestigious Kyoto Prize and in 2009 she obtained the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s first Lifetime Achievement Award.

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Gallery Exhibitions

Public exhibitions

Joan Jonas: Good Night Good Morning
14 March – 6 July 2024
The Museum of Modern Art, NY, USA
Joan Jonas: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral
6 March – 2 June 2024
The Drawing Center, NY, USA
Paraventi: Folding Screens from the 17th to 21st Centuries
26 October 2023 – 22 February 2024
Fondazione Prada, Milan, IT
23 December 2022 – 10 April 2023
Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi, JP
Joan Jonas
9 September 2022 – 26 February 2023
Haus der Kunst, Munich
Out Takes. What the Storm Washed In
Moving Off the Land IV
23 November 2021 – 1 February 2023
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, SP
Antonio's dream
10 October 2021 – 20 February 2022
Fondazione Ratti, Como, IT
Though it’s dark, still I sing
4 September 2020 – 5 December 2021
Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, Pavilhão da Bienal, São Paulo, BS
Joan Jonas
8 October 2021 – 13 March 2023
Dia Beacon’s lower-level galleries, Beacon, NY, USA
Joan Jonas: Five Decades
15 October 2020 – 8 February 2021
Pinacoteca de São Paulo, São Paulo, BS
Moving Off the Land II
25 February – 18 May 2020
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, SP
Joan Jonas. Five Rooms For Kyoto: 1972–2019
14 December 2019 – 2 February 2020
Kyoto City University of Arts Art Gallery @KCUA, Kyoto, JP
Joan Jonas. Reanimation
12 December – 12 December 2019
ROHM Theatre, Kyoto, JP
Joan Jonas
25 May – 1 September 2019
Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, PT
The Body Electric
30 March – 21 July 2019
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA
Joan Jonas, Moving Off the Land II
24 March – 29 September 2019
Ocean Space, Chiesa di San Lorenzo, Venice, IT
Joan Jonas: Videos
26 February – 26 May 2019
Remai Modern, Saskatoon, Canada
Joan Jonas: I Know Why They Left,
23 January – 30 October 2019
Fenway Gallery, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, USA
They Come to Us without a Word II
14 March – 5 August 2018
TATE Modern, London, UK
Joan Jonas
14 March – 5 August 2018
TATE Modern, London, UK
Promise of the Infinite: Joan Jonas and the Mirror
6 March – 2 June 2024
Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, South Hadley, Massachusetts, USA

Press

‘My Body Was My Vehicle’: Joan Jonas on Becoming a Performance Artist
Frieze
April 29, 2024
Meet Joan Jonas, One of America’s Most Elusive Artists
The New York Times
March 1, 2024
Tre grandi artiste americane in mostra da Raffaella Cortese
Exibart
February 28, 2023
Shifting Spaces
Kunstforum International
June–July 2020
‘It’s Like Practicing the Piano’: Watch Interdisciplinary Artist Joan Jonas Describe How Drawing Supports Her Other Creative Pursuits
Artnet news
February 27, 2020
Joan Jonas
L'Officiel Art
May 14, 2019
Joan Jonas
ArtReview
March 2018
Joan Jonas: All at Once
The New York Time Style Megazine
April 5, 2015
Joan Jonas
Artforum
January 16, 2011
Joan Jonas by Karin Schneider
Bomb
July 1, 2010

Publications

JOAN JONAS: GOOD NIGHT GOOD MORNING
Edited by Ana Janevski with Lilia Rocio Taboada. With contributions by Brandon Eng, Danielle Jackson, Piper Marshall, Chus Martínez, Jason Moran, Lilia Rocio Taboada, Molly Superfine, Gee Wesley, and Gillian Young; Photographic Portfolio: Zoe Leonard
MOMA
New York
2024
JOAN JONAS next move in a mirror world
Barbara Clausen and Kristin Poor with Kelly Kivland
Dia Art Foundation
Paris
2024
Joan Jonas
Laura Hoptman, Alec Recinos
DABA The Drawing Center
New York
2023
Joan Jonas: I Know Why They Left
Pieranna Cavalchini
Corraini
Milano
2019
Jonas Jonas
Julienne Lorz, Andrea Lissoni and João Ribas
Hirmer Verlag
Munich
2018
Joan Jonas Is on Our Mind
Edited by Frances Richard
CCA Wattis
San Francisco
2017
In the Shadow a Shadow: The Work of Joan Jonas
Edited by Joan Simon
Gregory R. Miller & Co.
New York
2015

Videos

A visit to Joan Jonas' New York loft
2024
Joan Jonas | Exhibition at Haus der Kunst
2022
Moving Off the Land II
2020
Joan Jonas: Drawings
2014
Joan Jonas Lecture at CCA
2014
Joan Jonas on Feminism
2009

Focus