Joan Jonas

Leader in performance art. Her unique performances weave together object-making with theater, film, video, and installation. She creates fantastical narratives with myth, legend and lore, which propel us into another realm of thinking. Working since 1968 she was selected to show at the Venice Biennale in 2015, the fifth woman to represent the United States at the Biennale with a solo exhibition. She began doing indoor and outdoor performances. She worked as a figurative sculptor, modeling mythological heroes like Icarus, and then studied dance with Trisha Brown for two years. In 1971, distance was the subject of the performance piece Mirror Check. That year, she also collaborated with Richard Serra on a nine-minute black and white film titled Paul Revere. She used the Rover video system to produce video works that had little to do with her public representations. Duet (1972), one of her first tapes, shows her face close-up as she barks and howls like a dog. In a seven-minute black and white videotape called Leftside, Rightside (1972), she explored the confines of video space.