Joan Jonas at Galleria Raffaella Cortese

Raffaella Cortese presents a second solo show at the gallery by acclaimed American artist Joan Jonas, renowned pioneer of performance and video.

Beginning in the 1960s, she placed female subjectivity at the center of her work, employing a complex linguistic repertoire including gestures, storytelling and images in movement. A tireless experimenter, Jonas explores the possibilities inherent to the interdisciplinary nature of art, a characteristic that has made her a point of reference for a younger generation of artists. Jonas’ recent works mainly focus on the fragility of nature and its relationship with the human dimension, as in Reanimation, partly inspired by the writings of Icelandic author Halldór Laxness, and They Come to Us without a Word, the greater installation at the 56th Venice Biennale, to name but a few. In her installations, videos and performances nothing is merely described, but rather evoked through the senses.

“Although the idea of my work involves the question of how the world is so rapidly and radically changing, I do not address the subject directly or didactically,” said Jonas. “Rather, the ideas are implied poetically through sound, lighting and the juxtaposition of images of children, animals and landscape.”

The show at the gallery comes together with Jonas’ international recognition after her major traveling exhibition Light Time Tales – firstly presented at the Hangar Bicocca in Milano; now on show at the Malmö Konsthall – and of course her installation in the US Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The artist will present a series of works coming right from the Venice installation, a video and a wall drawing designed expressively for the walls of the gallery space in via Stradella 4.