Mirage (installation), MoMA Collection

Description
Exhibitions and Installation Views
Floor Plans
Additional Materials
Interviews

Description

Joan Jonas, Mirage, 1976/1994/2005. Multimedia installation with six videos (Car Tape [1976], Volcano Film [1976], Good Night Good Morning [1976], May Windows [1976], Mirage [1976], and Mirage II [1976/2000]), props (seven metal cones, one found Mexican mask, three hoops, and two drawings on blackboard), stages, and photographs. The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Gift of Richard J, Massey, Clarissa Alcock Bronfman, Agnes Gund, and Committee on Media Funds, 2009.

The multimedia installation Mirage (1976/1994/2005), in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, evolved considerably from its initial presentation at the Stedelijk Museum in 1994 to what would become its current form in 2005. It was this version of the installation—Mirage (1976/1994/2005), first shown at Yvon Lambert in 2005—that the Museum of Modern Art acquired in 2009. This iteration of the installation includes three video projections: Mirage (1976) and Mirage II (1976/2000), which are projected side-by-side above a table-like platform which supports a number of props; and Volcano Film (1976), a large projection shown over a low stage platform on which a chalk hopscotch drawing is drawn anew each time the work is shown. Three additional videos, Car Tape (1976), Good Night Good Morning (1976), and May Windows (1976) are shown on vertical monitors arranged around the space. Fourteen photographs by Babette Mangolte and Benjamin Blackwell documenting performances of Mirage (1976) are installed on a wall. The installation also includes an arrangement of several upright metal cones and two blackboards with chalk drawings. Another, related installation, Mirage (1976/2001) is in the collection of the Whitney Museum.

—KP

Bibliographic References

“Collection 1940s–1970s. 418: Joan Jonas’s Mirage.” The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

“Joan Jonas, Mirage, 1976/1994/2005.” The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

“Performance 7: Mirage by Joan Jonas.” The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Simon, Joan. “Mirage [Installation].” In In the Shadow a Shadow: The Work of Joan Jonas, edited by Joan Simon and Joan Jonas, 228. New York: Gregory R. Miller & Co., 2015.

For further reading, see Mirage Bibliography.

Exhibitions and Installation Views

Performance 7: Mirage by Joan Jonas (2009) Installation Views

Entrance into exhibition. Wall reads: “The Yoshiko and Akio Morita Gallery”

Framed photos hang on a wall. Wall reads: “7 Performance Exhibition Series, Mirage by Joan Jonas”

A TV monitor on a stand displays a scene from Jonas’s performance, framed pictures hang on the back wall

Two video projections are displayed on the wall; there are also props including: a group of large cones to the right, a raised platform in front of the projections with a cone and mask on top of it, and a TV monitor on a stand to the left.

Props from Jonas’s performance including: large cones to the left, a small stage with a chalk number grid and a projection of an erupting volcano. There is a TV monitor on a stand to the right.

Three video projections from Jonas’s performance are displayed on the walls; there are also props including: large cones, a small stage, a platform with a cone and mask on top of it, and a TV monitor on a stand.

Props from Jonas’s performance including: three projections on the wall, large cones, a small stage with a chalk number grid, two drawings, a platform with a cone and mask on top of it, and a TV monitor on a stand.

A small stage with a chalk number grid in front of a projection, there is a TV monitor on a stand to the right.

Collection 1940s–1970s (2019) Installation Views

A room filled with: two projections, two TV monitors on stands, a small stage, a platform with a cone and a mask on top, a drawing placed on the floor, and a group of large cones

Two TV monitors, one mounted to the wall and the other on a stand, display footage from Jonas’s performance. Framed photographs hang on the back wall.

Various props from Jonas’s performance including: two drawings on the floor; a TV monitor on a stand; a cone, mask, and hoop on top of a platform; and large cones. There is a projection of the performance behind the platform.

For additional exhibitions, see Mirage (1976/1994/2005) (installation)(Exhibitions and Installation Views).

Floor Plans

Joan Jonas, Mirage (1976/1994/2005), installation floor plan, Performance 7: Mirage by Joan Jonas, The Museum of Modern Art, 2009.

Joan Jonas, Mirage (1976/1994/2005), furniture and image dimensions, Performance 7: Mirage by Joan Jonas, The Museum of Modern Art, 2009.

Joan Jonas, Mirage (1976/1994/2005), furniture and image dimensions, Performance 7: Mirage by Joan Jonas, The Museum of Modern Art, 2009.

Joan Jonas, Mirage (1976/1994/2005), furniture dimensions, Performance 7: Mirage by Joan Jonas, The Museum of Modern Art, 2009.

Additional Materials

Joan Jonas, Mirage (1976/1994/2005), Conservation Report, The Museum of Modern Art, 2009.

Joan Jonas, Mirage, 1976/1994/2005. Installation Documentation, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2019.

Interviews

Joan Jonas on Mirage Installations, April 2019
Interview with Sydney Briggs, Amy Brost, and Mike Gibbons (respectively the collections associate registrar, assistant media conservator, and audio visual technician at the Museum of Modern Art, New York), December 2019
Interview with Rebecca Cleman and Karl McCool (respectively the Executive Director, and the Distribution Director of Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) in New York), January 2021
Interview with Barbara London (founding curator of video and media art at the Museum of Modern Art, New York [1973–2017]; curator, writer, and a professor at Yale University), May 2019
Interview with Seth Price (New York-based multidisciplinary artist and writer, and former staff member of Electronic Arts Intermix, New York), November 2020