Joan Jonas

Joan Jonas emerged in a rich and experimental 1960s New York art scene that included such luminaries as Richard Serra, Gordon Matta-Clark, John Cage, Philip Glass, and Merce Cunningham. Since that time Jonas has gained a peerless status as a pioneer of performance and video. Jonas's work typically encompasses video, performance, installation, sound, text, and drawing. Defying easy categorization, it engages with complex ideas of ritual, myth, and storytelling. In recent years Jonas has also become increasingly engaged with environmental issues, focusing on the animal world and the vulnerability of our planet. This new publication includes an introduction to Jonas's practice and brings together selected conversations from the last fourteen years, in which the artist talks about her interdisciplinary approach as well as the influences and impulses she has absorbed from literature, music, traditional Japanese Noh theater, and the rituals of foreign cultures.