Joan Jonas: a monumental artist.
A trailblazer in the visual arts, Joan Jonas is the recipient of many awards. In the 2025 Art Basel she has been selected as a medalist for the Icon Artist Award.
Photos + Q&A by Domenica Bucalo
How old are you?
88.
What did you want to be when you were a child?
An artist.
What has been an influential experience in your life?
The schools I went to and people I studied with – in college I studied with a woman who taught a course in mannerism- the ideas of mannerism influenced how I thought about art and art history. Traveling and experiencing different cultures has been a huge inspiration for me.
Throughout your career you have used and continue to use a wide range of media. By doing that you transcended labels. Can you talk about the driven force behind?
I had always studied art history and will continue to. At the same time, I studied films by going to see them, not in the classroom. The relationship, of film and art history, or the still and the moving image is very important. Both are framing devices. My interest in these forms, as well as the disciplines of drawing, and music, informed my practice. I was driven, as you say, and was continuously concerned with how they could be part of a video, a film or an installation. I ask how do things begin? The Noh theater began as ritual, for instance, I thought of my earliest works as my own everyday ritual. Also, the fact that women in Minoan culture in Greece or Crete swam with the dolphins can be related to our present time. Such memories led me to include mermaids in Reanimation, my work about the ocean. Architecture was depicted in early renaissance paintings by Sassetta, in delicate hues. The forms are arranged and drawn in beautiful ways. Figures sometimes seem to fly. Later Piero Della Francesca, worked on canvas drawing a classical space, in which standing figures seem to hover.
Your career has given agency to artists to embrace and experiment with different media. Anthropologically speaking it’s an extensive ground for discovery and elaboration. Would you agree?
I would agree it leads to endless combinations of the various elements. while considering the particular properties of each. Layering, exchanging and juxtaposing. When I shifted from the study of art history to sculpture, I made the statement "I didn t see a major difference between a poem, a sculpture, a film, or a dance." Of course, there are different dimensions and appearances, but it’s my interest to work with the structural aspects of these forms in relation to each other. Poetry and film, movement and dance. One finds how a sound alters one’s perception of image and space.
Do we activate better chances at positive change when history is brought in the conversation?
It is important for me to know what’s going on in the world when I make my work, because I want it to exist in the context of the present. History always exists in the conversation. Work is made in a dialogue with the past, the future and the present.
Can you talk about your recent exhibit at Gladstone Gallery “Empty Rooms”?
Empty rooms began with an idea a year ago. When I thought about various friends passing away, I felt that they left an empty room, so this became the title of the piece. I was thinking of particular people but only included their initials at the door. I was interested in working with the sculptural aspects of my work. There were twelve forms made of metal frames, with Japanese paper sewn on, the projected video, and 50 drawings of trees. The video was recorded and presented in 2015, in the performance version of They Come To Us Without a Word at the Venice Biennale. I worked on developing it at that time, and it now includes a new soundtrack by Jason Moran, more appropriate to the present situation. The wire and paper shapes glowing with light from inside, hang from the ceiling represent empty rooms in a way, but they also exist on their own. They glowed from inside. The wind turbine in the video relates to time and endless turning. Performers were Zora Casebere, Willa Schwabsky, and Jin Jung, who moved and interacted as shadows of the video projection. I made 50 tree drawings, hung in a grid, on Japanese paper first making the drawing and then crinkling it up to give them a different kind of dimension. The trees of course have no leaves, I’m interested in their structure, not the beauty of the leaves, but the beauty of the structure of the trees. Jason Moran performed in the installation twice, on a grand piano.
Music in your work plays an important role. Your long-time collaboration with Jason Moran is a testament to it. How do you approach a new music score?
The music becomes part of the work. In the case of Empty Rooms, it was Jason’s contribution to the projected image. I work with the music, with its peculiarities, so it depends on the piece. It’s not about being in time with it. I will work on a new piece with Jason by responding to and improvising with what and how he plays, new visual material with the music. How it inspires my movements and use of imagery.
Your favorite place in New York?
Central Park, but also Washington Square. And the two rivers.
Would you agree that a dance floor is never simply a dance floor?
There are ideal dance floors for dancers. I really enjoy having an unusual floor like a stone, cobblestone, or grass floor. The different surfaces add to the context of the piece.
Will you ever leave NY? And if yes, where would you go?
Maybe Canada.
Joan Jonas and Domenica Bucalo in conversation April 2025, New York
