biography
Joan Jonas was born in 1936 in New York, where she lives and works.
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.
Joan Jonas was born in 1936 in New York, where she lives and works.
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.
In 2019, in collaboration with TBA21, has presented an immersive exhibition at Chiesa di San Lorenzo, Venice, which then travelled to Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain in 2020. In 2019 the Kyoto City University of Arts Art Gallery presented Five Rooms For Kyoto: 1972 - 2019, Jonas’ largest solo exhibition in Japan. In 2018 Tate Modern devoted to her a major survey exhibition, which then travelled to Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, Portugal. In 2015 Jonas represented the United States at the 56th Venice Biennale. In 2009 the artist was awarded the Guggenheim’s first annual Lifetime Achievement Award.
Jonas's selected solo exhibitions and performances include: Tate Modern, London, UK; Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, Portugal; Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain; Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany; HangarBicocca, Milan, Italy; Sigmund Freud Museum, Vienna, Austria; Dia:Beacon, Beacon, New York; Fundacion Botin, Santander, Spain; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Spain; Le Plateau and Jeu de Paume / Hotel de Sully, Paris, France; Renaissance Society, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois; CCA Kitakyushu, Kitakyushu, Japan; Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany; the Queens Museum of Art, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
gallery exhibitions
In Full Bloom
may 12 – july 30, 2010
via a. stradella 7, brown project space, kaleidoscope, luigi presicce studio
images
Installations

Stream or River Flight or Pattern II, 2016
Multimedia installation: tinted walls, wall drawings, 2 video projections
Dimensions variable

Stream or River Flight or Pattern II, 2016
Multimedia installation: tinted walls, wall drawings, 2 video projections
Dimensions variable

Stream or River Flight or Pattern II, 2016
Multimedia installation: tinted walls, wall drawings, 2 video projections
Dimensions variable

Reading Dante IV, 1976/2010
Installation view at Galleria Raffaella Cortese, via Stradella 7, Milan, 2010
Multimedia installation: 4 videos, 3 wall drawings, 2 tables with plexiglass, 2 benches, 1 chalkboard, 1 hanging lamp, 2 floor lamps, 15 drawings
Dimensions variable
Video works
Drawings
public exhibitions
press
publications
video
Joan Jonas: Drawings
2014
From Art21’s Extended Play series Video courtesy Art21, art21.org, founded 1997
Joan Jonas Lecture at CCA
2014
Lecture at California College of the Arts, October 9, 2014 organized by CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts
