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Joan Jonas

Blue to Blue, 2016/2018

January 22 - June 24, 2019
ANNE H. FITZPATRICK FAÇADE

About the Exhibition

Joan Jonas's work focuses on environmental and temporal concerns. She has been long fascinated with the fragility and beauty of nature, specifically fish and birds, among other animals with whom we share the planet. She has developed a strong visual language to embrace these concerns.

With this façade, she reminds us of the perils facing sea creatures today.

At 1:40, Artist-in-Residence Joan Jonas discusses her inspiration for this facade work.

About the Artist

Joan Jonas (b. 1936, USA) is the recipient of numerous fellowships, honors, and awards. She received her B.A. in Art History from Mount Holyoke College, studied sculpture at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and received her M.F.A. in sculpture from Columbia University. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Jonas was active in the New York art scene, mingling with Nancy Holt, Richard Serra, Robert Smithson, and Robert Whitman; dancers and choreographers Simone Forti, Yvonne Rainer, and Trisha Brown; and composers and musicians John Cage, Terry Riley, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and La Monte Young. Exposure to these various disciplines fed into the layering of art forms in her own work.

Jonas began teaching at MIT in 1998 and is currently Professor Emerita at the MIT Program in Art, Culture, and Technology with the School of Architecture and Planning.

The Artist-in-Residence Program is directed by Pieranna Cavalchini, Tom and Lisa Blumenthal Curator of Contemporary Art, and is supported, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Barbara Lee Program Fund. Funding is also provided for site-specific installations of new work on the Anne H. Fitzpatrick Façade on Evans Way. The Museum receives operating support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which receives support from the State of Massachusetts and the National Endowment for the Arts.   

Media Sponsor: Boston magazine