On November 12, I visited the Museum of Modern Art in New York City which had a variety of fascinating exhibition of American contemporary artists. I concentrated my attention on the performance/installation called Reanimation 2010/2012/2013 by Joan Jonas, which was located in the Museum’s fourth-floor collection galleries. I intentionally called this exhibition as a performance or installation since it incorporated huge custom screens with four running videos, two wooden theater boxes with video, multiple ink and china marker drawings, two benches, and intricate crystal sculpture.
Jonas has often explored the possibilities of video and performance combination, thus her work largely occupies space. As a viewer, I had a sense of walking into this dark magical space experiencing some kind of a three-dimensional fantasy. “Its interwoven elements draw on the nonlinear qualities of Japanese Noh theater and on Icelandic white Halldor Laxness’s 1968 novel Under the Glacier, in which a young man is sent to investigate paranormal activity surrounding a glacier” (from the text on the wall). In fact, all videos of glaciers were captured by Jonas herself while she was investigating the glacial melt of Arctic Circle in Iceland. On the screens, images of severe snowy conditions, mountains, animals, and fish raises the message of the impact of human activities and invincible ecological processes on the Earth.
This multimedia installation was outstanding to me because as in many contemporary (after Post-modernism period) performances Jonas provided a sensory experience through videos, audios, drawings, and sculpture. To sum up, illustrating a glacial melt on one screen, listening to piano playing and capturing enigmatic sense of this performance, the essential message on the other screen shows that “Time is the one thing we can all agree to call supernatural”.
WORK CITED
“Reanimation 2010/2012/2013”. Collection Galleries, Floor 4. Museum of Modern Art. 11 W 53rd St, New York, NY 10019. 12 Nov. 2017.
Scott, Andrea K. “Joan Jonas’s Mythopoetic Vision.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 18 June 2017, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/29/joan-jonas-mythopoetic-vision.
“Joan Jonas | Performance Drawing from Reanimation, Tate Live 2013, Tate Modern (2013) | Artsy.” Artsy – Discover, Research, and Collect the World’s Best Art Online, 2017, www.artsy.net/artwork/joan-jonas-performance-drawing-from-reanimation-tate-live-2013-tate-modern#!
This looks like such an interesting exhibit especially considering how it ties in to my curatorial project. Jonas’ investigation into human impacts on the environment, specifically glaciers is very important especially today. The last slide quoting Halldor Laxness could be interpreted as stating that time began when humans started keeping track of it and that humans are bringing about the end of the world (humankind is the beginning and the end).
I wish I had time to go to this exhibition because the digital artwork that you were shown looks very appealing. I love the video especially because I hear so many different sounds from windchimes to crystals hitting on crystal and the visuals are amazing.
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