Welcome to the Joan Jonas Knowledge Base
The Joan Jonas Knowledge Base (JJKB) is an open source digital resource housing information about the New York-based multimedia and performance artist Joan Jonas (b. 1936) who has been at the vanguard of interdisciplinary art forms such as performance, video art, and new media installations for over five decades. This academic research project (NYU, UQAM, UCLA) is part of the Artist Archive Initiative dedicated to providing useful information to conservators, curators, and other researchers who seek to learn more about the artist’s work. The resource features studies on:
- Two early works: Organic Honey (1972; 1972/1994) and Mirage (1976; 1976/1994/2005; 1976/2001)
- Three exhibitions: her first museum exhibition, her very first retrospective, Joan Jonas: Performances/Video/Installation, at University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley in 1980; her second retrospective, Joan Jonas: Works 1968–1994 at the Stedelijk Museum in 1994; and her more recent retrospective, Light Time Tales at the Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan in 2014
On this site you will find archival materials, scripts, publications, interviews, photographs, videos, floor plans, notebook pages, and biographical information that will guide you through the layered histories of these key early works and three major retrospectives of Joan Jonas. For further information about the project and who we are, please see the Joan Jonas Knowledge Base Introduction.
Image Captions
About Joan Jonas: Joan Jonas being interviewed by Brandon Eng on October 22, 2018. Source: Joan Jonas Knowledge Base.
Artwork Case Studies: Joan Jonas, Organic Honey’s Vertical Roll (1972), Ace Gallery, Los Angeles, 1972. Performers: Joan Jonas, Anne Thornycroft, Margaret Wilson. Camera: Roberta Neiman. Photo: Roberta Neiman. Source: Joan Jonas Studio.
Exhibition Case Studies: Joan Jonas, Revolted by the thought of known places…Sweeney Astray, 1994. Multimedia Installation. Installation view, Joan Jonas: Works 1968–1994, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1994. Photo credit © Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
Linked Open Data: Detail of a map data visualization of the SPARQL query “All instantiations of Mirage and Organic Honey with locations” in Wikidata. Source: Joan Jonas Knowledge Base.
Knowledge Base Resources: Joan Jonas, diagram for Mirage (detail), c. 1994. Ink on paper. Source: Stedelijk Museum Archives, Amsterdam.