She bought a Sony Portapak video camera in 1970, whichchanged everything.
Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
How are you feeling in this moment?
Joan Jonas performing in Robert Ashley’sCelestial Excursionsat the Kitchen in 2003.
The wordlongevitycomes to mind.
Joan Jonas:I think Im lucky to have lived so long and have these shows.
Everything is a little slower.
Joan Jonas posing for an unrealized poster for a performance ofOrganic Honey’s Visual Telepathyat LoGiudice Gallery, New York, 1972.
And I like all the people that I have contact with.
Im very glad that people are finally seeing my work in New York.
Youve shown more in Europe.
Joan Jonas,Untitled. 2015. Ink on paper.
This MoMA retrospective is the first big museum show in your hometown, right?
Its great, and exciting.
And I have never had a drawing show before.
Joan Jonas,Untitled. 2015. Ink on paper.
I have about 2,000 drawingstheyre not all great, of course.
Youve included animals and nature in much of your work.
What is it about the natural world that keeps drawing you back?
Joan Jonas.Mirror Piece I. 1969. Performance, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.
Well, I live in it.
When I first started making my work, it was just part of my life.
The dog was in my life, and so I brought the dogs in.
Installation view ofJoan Jonas: Good Night Good Morning, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
I go to Canada.
I live with trees.
And Ive spent a lot of time in nature in my life.
Joan Jonas.Delay Delayperformance view, Lower West Side, New York. 1972.
So then I often just take something that interests me and work on drawing it.
And then for me, drawing is a practice in the real sense that Ipracticeit.
Not sometimesoftenmore than once.
Joan Jonas,Untitled.
Do you think about that cyclicality, whether in drawing or video or performance?
I dont really think of it in that word.
But I do reuse them.
I call it reusing them, or reconsidering them, or really including them in different ways.
I dont think of them as cyclical, but I can see why you would use that word.
When youre reusing these ideas, do they take a different form?
Yeah, of course.
And that interests me.
But I dont redo any of the videos.
I dont re-edit them.
You were a pioneer of video art in the early 1970s.
At the time, did it feel that way?
I never called myself a pioneer, so lets forget that word.
I mean, it felt like a new and exciting medium, definitely.
And it was a time when everything was shifting.
And so that was really exciting.
I was aware of it going into that medium of video and performance, yes.
Not in painting and sculpture, which I loveI have many friends who are painters and sculptors.
But I really wanted to invent my own language.
I was influenced by literature.
Thats why I chose the mirror.
Did you know right away when you read these texts that you wanted to explore them further?
No, but I knew right away that I liked it.
I mean, Halldor Laxness, I immediately loved him and I read all the books I could find.
But it takes time to know that you could deal with something like that.
I never illustrated an entire book by him, but I certainly was inspired.
Dia published a book about it, including a detailed outline of the performance.
Thats my way to reconstruct my performances, so that they can live on in a certain way.
I always do that, as much as possible.
How much do the performances stay true to the script, and how much is improvisation?
I dont improvise with the scripts.
I [capture] exactly what happens, because I videotape everything.
Theyre based completely on physical performance, on what happened.
With the subsequent performances, do you feel any nostalgia for the original?
I dont feel nostalgia.
Im just worried about whether its going to work.
Or how I can make it better.
Over the years youve collaborated with other artists, and with musicians like Jason Moran.
Has collaboration always been important to you?
One of the reasons that I went into performance is because I like to work with people.
Because it is my workthats the original impulse.
Its just part of the work.
Except when I work with Jason.
He does the music and I do the performance, and then we put them together.
It becomes by both of us.
You work across many mediums.
Does it work like that?
I never say that, actually.
And so I concentrate on the subject, and then I invent.
I tried to find ways to portray the idea.
And that could be many ways.
Youve also traveled to the American Southwest, and Japan was very influential.
How do you see physical place as an influence on your art?
Im inspired by the culture of those places.
And then the landscape becomes a kind of receptacle.
I might record the landscape and use it.
Of course I think about it, because I know theyre not possible.
I hardly ever make things outdoors in New York anymore.
I havent for a long time.
The way it looks now, you know, its all new.
I like those empty lots, the piers of the Lower West Side, where we filmedDelay Delay.
I like those architectural aspects of New York in an earlier time.
But I dont want to feel nostalgia.
You know, its difficult for them.
In New York, its hard.
Do you have advice for them, the young artists of today?
My only advice is to enjoy what youre doing.
You have to love what youre doing.
Because its not easy.
I take it you have loved what youve been doing
Well, not all the time, but yeah.
I had to do it.
I devoted myself to it.
From a young age, right?
You knew you wanted to be an artist.
Yeah, but so many do.
My father wanted me to be an artist.
I didnt live with him, but he did say that was his desire.
And I think it gave me a bit of a push at the very beginning.
Because for some, its not an easy decision.
But as soon as I decided, that was it.
You got your start in a different medium, in sculpture.
I read you destroyed a lot of that work.
Yes, I studied art history and learned sculpture.
I destroyed them because I dont think theyre up to par.
Maybe its not your best work.
You know, people can use it in different ways that you cant predict.
Does any of that interest you?
Im very curious about AI, to be frank.
What I mean by that is you push buttons and combine things.
Ive always stuck to my own aesthetic.
