Performer and video artist.
A pioneer of performance and video art, Jonas works in video, installation, sculpture, and drawing, often collaborating with musicians and dancers to realize improvisational works that are equally at home in the museum gallery and on the theatrical stage. Drawing on mythic stories from various cultures, Jonas invests texts from the past with the politics of the present. She is a professor emerita at MIT. Among her many honors are awards from the Rockefeller Foundation (1990); American Film Institute’s Maya Deren Award for Video (1989); Guggenheim Foundation (1976). Jonas has had major exhibitions at Documenta (2002, 2013); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2010); Venice Biennale (2009); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (2006); Jeu de Paume (2005); Tate Modern (2004), MoMA NY (2024) and Dia Center for the Arts (2000), among others. Joan Jonas lives and works in New York and Nova Scotia, Canada.
