Description
Joan Jonas, Mirror Check, 1970. Performance.
Mirror Check (1970), an independent work which was initially performed as part of Mirror Piece II (1970), became a part of Organic Honey’s Vertical Roll (1972) with Jonas enacting it at the start of each performance. In it, Jonas stands naked, twenty or forty feet from the audience (the distance varies according to each venue). Beginning with her face, Jonas slowly inspects her entire body using a small, round mirror, moving from left to right, as she works her way down. Mirror Check is one of the few performances where Jonas appears in the nude, and which, in time, she has taught other younger performers to reperform.
—AK
Bibliographic References
Jonas, Joan. “Mirrors.” In In the Shadow a Shadow: The Work of Joan Jonas, edited by Joan Simon and Joan Jonas, 40. New York: Gregory R. Miller & Co., 2015.
“Mirror Check.” In In the Shadow a Shadow: The Work of Joan Jonas, edited by Joan Simon and Joan Jonas, 54–55. New York: Gregory R. Miller & Co., 2015.
“Mirror Pieces.” In Joan Jonas: Scripts and Descriptions 1968–1982, edited by Douglas Crimp, 11–24. Berkeley: University Art Museum, University of California; Eindhoven: Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, 1983.