Joan Jonas

In 1970, Joan Jonas stood just a few metres from the audience, entirely naked. Carefully, with a small hand mirror, she inspected each part of her own naked body. The spectators saw only the artist, but not what she saw in the mirror. Today, other performers take the place of the 88-year-old artist. As such, Mirror Check is a rare performance in which the artist transfers her role to other (young) women. 

Fifteen women hold tall, narrow mirrors. They move in slow patterns, in a lovely line. They keep turning towards the spectators, who see themselves looking back in one mirror, then another. The performers literally present the audience with a looking glass. They create distance and also a connection. As spectators we cannot help but consider our place in the big picture. 

Joan Jonas often works on the relationship and distance between audience and artwork. Six Feet (A Measuring Distance, 2020) is a work that literally plays with distance. During the coronavirus pandemic, ‘6 feet’, almost 2 metres, was the distance in the US that had to be kept between two people. The spacer has lost its purpose today. It is now a reminder of a period in which many people in isolation missed each other. 

• Continuous viewing 
• Please do not touch

In this reflective space, objects from past performances by Joan Jonas come together, for the first time in the open air. The objects recall memorable moments from Jonas’ artistic practice. They create tracks of the performers, stand-ins, an archive. The loose objects stand alone while also being part of an installation, in which you too, as a spectator, also briefly become part via the reflection in the mirrors. 

Continuous viewing
Please do not touch

Joan Jonas welcomes you from her studio. After your visit she waves you goodbye. Yet the artist herself is not there, you only see her reflection. The work picks up on a video work from 1976 in which she greets herself every morning and evening in a camera. For this version, Jonas focuses on her reflection. She is there via the mirror. Mirrors that connect people are found in almost all of her work in the exhibition. 

• Continuous viewing, duration: 16 mins.
• Please do not touch