![]() ![]() Whereas Abramović’s work is confrontational and direct - in her 2010 MoMA show, “ The Artist Is Present,” the performance artist sat in a chair for hours a day as visitors lined up to sit across from her - Jonas’s work is, by contrast, multilayered, elusive, evocative and difficult to articulate concisely, if at all. Jonas is at least as influential and groundbreaking as her near contemporary Marina Abramović, 77, but has somehow never achieved quite the same name recognition. It was important to her that he, and many others in her world, see this collection of her work, its totality and its range. “You’re coming, right?” said Jonas, speaking into a cellphone at the museum in late December. There was a hint of tension in her voice - a curator from Europe on the other end of the line had better be coming - and her face relaxed upon hearing a reassurance. This month, she’s finally receiving a hometown retrospective at MoMA, a tribute on a scale she’s already had in cities such as Milan, London and Munich. Nature, the human form, the mysteries of rites and myth - all of it has featured prominently in the work of Jonas, who has, in the past 50 or so years, evolved, gone (briefly) underappreciated and resurged, all the while innovating, even as her recursive body of work kept referring back to itself. Jonas - who prefers to be described as a visual artist, given the range of her work - has been a figure of fascination since 1968, when she started experimenting in 16-millimeter film with a short called “Wind,” featuring human figures struggling against the gales on a seashore, their enigmatic movements competing with the power of the elements themselves. In an essay published many years later, the composer Alvin Curran recalled Jonas’s stature in that environment: “On the streets, children cry out, ‘Here comes Joan Jonas,’” he wrote, adding that some even wanted to be what she was when they grew up: a performance artist. JOAN JONAS, 87, perched on a stool in a room behind the scenes at MoMA, was immediately recognizable as the artist she had been - compact, tense, intense - when she emerged as a figure in New York’s downtown scene in the late 1960s. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |