Translations: Joan Jonas Artist Talk with Linda Nochlin
Moderated by Jovana Stokić
Wednesday, March 24, 2010 at 7pm
Free and open to the public
Location One is proud to present Drawing/Performance/Video, a new exhibition by Joan Jonas that
highlights the role of drawing in the artist's performance and video work, on view through May 8,
2010. In conjunction with this exhibition, Location One will host two evenings of conversation
with Jonas.
March 24 at 7pm: Translations Linda Nochlin speaks with Joan Jonas, moderated
by Jovana Stokić, curator of the Abramović Studio at Location One
Beyond the current heated discussion of museums' interest in preserving the legacy of
performance art of the 1970s, this talk will focus on another issue
central to performance art: the representation of the feminine self
from the 1970s till today. It brings together preeminent feminist
art historian Linda Nochlin, and visionary artist Joan Jonas,
contemporaries who, in different ways, have worked for more than five
decades on debunking the myths of the essential female subject. The
moderator of this encounter, art historian and curator Jovana Stokić,
has written a PhD dissertation based on these quests in both art and
art history. It is a critical intervention into the notion of
contemporary femininity in representation by tracing the ways in which
the genre of self-portraiture became the principal constituent of a
specific, feminine artistic identity. This talk will discuss the
strategy of performative reading that hopes to show how the
representation of the body is constructed as a site of subjectivity
for a particular artist–Joan Jonas. It will offer analysis of
Jonas's works that focus on the notion of feminine
self-representation: from her early video performances to her later
works. It will shed light on Jonas's articulation of the artistic self
in representation, and her purposeful evocation of feminine beauty in
performance.
Please also join us
Thursday, April 8th at 7 pm
Bonnie Marranca, Founder and Publisher of PAJ, A Journal of Performance and Art, and Claire MacDonald, Director, International Centre for Fine Arts Research, University of the Arts London/Central St. Martins speak with Joan Jonas.
Joan Jonas is a pioneer of video-performance art. Her experiments
and productions in the late 1960s and early 1970s were essential to the formulation of
the genre. Threads of Jonas's influence can be found in many genres; from performance
and video to conceptual art and theater.
Jonas has worked with composers such as Alvin Lucier and Jason Moran to develop
video-performance works. Her work continues to explore the relationship of digital
media to performance.
Jonas has had major retrospectives at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1994), and
Galerie der Stadt Stuttgart, Germany (2000), and was represented in Documenta V, VI,
VII and XI in Kassel, Germany. In 2004, the Queens Museum of Art presented Joan
Jonas: Five Works, the first major exhibition of the Joan Jonas's work in a New York
museum. The exhibition included a selection of the artist's most significant installations,
a video room, and a survey of Jonas' drawings, photographs, and sketchbooks.
The first installation and performance of Jonas's Reading Dante was at the 2008
Biennale of Sydney. Later that year Jonas performed the work at the Yokohama
Triennale, and also performed a reading at The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in
Boston. Jonas was featured in the International Pavilion of the 2009 Venice Biennale
where she installed Reading Dante II. Most recently, the artist presented Reading Dante
II at the Performing Garage in New York as part of Performa '09, and selected elements
of this performance are featured in Reading Dante III at Yvon Lambert New York. Also at
the Museum of Modern Art, through May 31, 2010, Performance 7: Mirage, which is a
reimagining of the groundbreaking performance originally created in 1976. In 2009
Jonas was awarded the Guggenheim's first annual Lifetime Achievement Award.
Joan Jonas is represented by Yvon Lambert Gallery, and was Senior Artist in Residence
at Location One in 2008-09.
Linda Nochlin, a Professor and art historian, is considered to be a
leader in feminist art history studies. In 1971, the magazine ArtNews
published an essay whose title posed a question that would
spearhead an entirely new branch of art history. The essay, "Why Have
There Been No Great Women Artists?," explores possible reasons why
"greatness" in artistic accomplishment has been reserved for male
"geniuses" such as Michelangelo. Nochlin argues that general social
expectations against women seriously pursuing art, restrictions on
educating women at art academies, and "the entire romantic, elitist,
individual-glorifying, and monograph-producing substructure upon which
the profession of art history is based" have systematically precluded
the emergence of great women artists. Nochlin has also been involved
in publishing other essays and books including Women, Art, and Power:
And Other Essays (1988), The Politics of Vision: Essays on
Nineteenth-Century Art and Society (1989), Women in the 19th Century:
Categories and Contradictions (1997), and
Representing Women (1999). Nochlin was the co-curator of a number of
landmark exhibitions exploring the history and achievements of female artists. "Women
Artists: 1550-1950" (with Anne Sutherland Harris) opened at the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art in 1976. "Global Feminisms" (with Maura
Reilly) opened at the Brooklyn Museum in 2007. Nochlin received her BA
from Vassar College, an MA in English from Columbia University, and
her PhD in the history of art from the
Institute of Fine Arts at New York University in 1963. Besides
feminist art history, she is best known for her work on Realism,
specifically on Courbet. After working in the art history departments
at Yale University, the
Graduate Center of the City University of New York (with Rosalind
Krauss), and Vassar College, Nochlin took a position at the Institute
of Fine Arts, where she continues to teach.The thirty-year anniversary
of Nochlin's query motivated a conference at Princeton University in
2001. The book associated with the
conference, "Women artists at the Millennium", that hosts Nochlin's
new essay ""Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" Thirty Years
After", and in which art historians discuss the innovative work of
contemporary artists in the light of the legacies of thirty years
of feminist art history, appeared in 2006.
Belgrade-born, New York-based art historian and critic Jovana Stokić
holds a PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts at the New York
University. Her dissertation, titled "The Body Beautiful: Feminine
Self-Representations 1970 - 2007," analyzes works of several women
artists — Marina Abramovic, Martha Rosler, Joan Jonas — since the
1970s, particularly focusing on the notions of self-representation and
beauty. Jovana has been writing art criticism for several years, and
has curated several thematic exhibitions and performance events in the
US, Italy, Spain and Serbia. Jovana was a fellow at the New Museum of
Contemporary Art, New York, a researcher at the Whitney Museum of
American Art, New York, and the curator of the Kimmel Center
Galleries, New York University. She has most recently written an essay
for Marina Abramović's MoMA exhibition catalogue.
ABOUT LOCATION ONE
Based in the Soho arts district of New York, Location One is an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to fostering new forms of creative expression and cultural exchange through exhibitions, residencies, performances, public lectures and workshops. Traditionally focused on technological experimentation and new media, Location One's residencies and programs have favored social and political discourse and dialogue, and acted as a catalyst for collaborations. With a unique environment providing individualized training, support, and guidance to each artist, as well as exposure for their creations and collaborations, Location One continues to nurture the spirit of experimentation that it considers the cornerstone of its mission.
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