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  • Writer's pictureSarah Chalkie Cloonan

Unit 2 -Critical Reflection & Context - Joan Jonas

Joan Jonas speaks about holes in the fabric of New York City. I prefer that to portals, the holes are places of slippage as described by Felicity Hammond in her talk, places where residue can gather waiting to be collected and delivered.



Joan Jonas was born in 1936 in New York. A pioneer of performance and video art, Jonas works in video, installation, sculpture, and drawing, often collaborating with musicians and dancers to realize improvisational works that are equally at home in the museum gallery and on the theatrical stage. Drawing on mythic stories from various cultures, Jonas invests texts from the past with the politics of the present.


A pioneer of performance and video art, Joan Jonas works in video, installation, sculpture, and drawing, often collaborating with musicians and dancers to realize improvisational works that are equally at home in the museum gallery and on the theatrical stage. Drawing on mythic stories from various cultures, Jonas invests texts from the past with the politics of the present. By wearing masks in some works, and drawing while performing on stage in others, she disrupts the conventions of theatrical storytelling to emphasize potent symbols and critical self-awareness. From masquerading in disguise before the camera to turning mirrors on the audience, she turns doubling and reflection into metaphors for the tenuous divide between subjective and objective vision, and the loss of fixed identities.


Joan Jonas: Portrayals Of Female Identity – Tate Modern


https://art21.org/watch/extended-play/joan-jonas-drawings-short/


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