Registration will open on Wednesday, January 22 at noon.
Joan Jonas
Untitled, c. 1970's
Oil Pastel
23 7/16 x 31 1/8 inches (59.5 x 79 cm)
The School of the Arts welcomes back illustrious graduate Joan Jonas ’65, who will share reflections on her recent work, creative practice, and extraordinary career. Introduced by Sarah Cole, Dean of Columbia University School of the Arts. Response by Adama Delphine Fawundu ’18, Visual Arts.
Joan Jonas (b. 1936, New York, NY) is a world-renowned artist whose work encompasses a wide range of media including video, performance, installation, sound, text, and sculpture. Jonas' experiments and productions in the late 1960s and early 1970s continue to be crucial to the development of many contemporary art genres, from performance and video to conceptual art and theatre. Since 1968, her practice has explored ways of seeing, the rhythms of rituals, and the authority of objects and gestures.
Jonas has exhibited and performed extensively around the world. Her notable exhibition history includes Documenta 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, and 13; the 28th Sao Paolo Biennial; the 5th Kochi-Muziris Biennale; and the 13th Shanghai Biennale. She has recently presented solo exhibitions at the United States Pavilion for the 56th Edition of the Venice Biennial; Tate Modern, London; Museu Serralves, Porto; Pinacoteca de São Paulo; Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid; Dia Beacon; Haus der Kunst, Munich; and The Drawing Center, New York. Most recently, the Museum of Modern Art in New York hosted a retrospective of Jonas's work. Jonas is the recipient of many awards including The Whitechapel Gallery Art Icon (2016); the Maya Deren Award given by the American Film Institute (1989); and the Lifetime Achievement Award given by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (2009). In 2024, she was presented the Nam June Paik prize, awarded to artists who have contributed to the development of contemporary art, mutual understanding, and world peace; and in 2018, Jonas was awarded the prestigious Kyoto Prize, given to those individuals who have contributed significantly to the scientific, cultural and spiritual betterment of mankind.
Speak Now is a new speaker series at Columbia University School of the Arts. Speak Now features artists whose work reaches a broad public and embodies the spirit of adventurous creativity that is the hallmark of the School of the Arts.