Fellow artists, students and colleagues at MIT celebrated the life and creative career of Joan Jonas, professor of visual arts, with a daylong conference titled "Theatricality in Contemporary Art," held Oct. 23.
Jonas, 70, is a pioneer performance artist whose productions in the 1960s and 1970s were crucial to the development of video and conceptual art.
During the past decade, she has worked with composers to produce collaborative video-performance works, and she has performed and toured with The Wooster Group. Her most recent work continues to explore the relationship of new digital media to performance. Jonas is currently developing a performance for the Museum of Modern Art in Dublin where three of her installations will also be included.
In 2004, the Queens Museum of Art presented "Joan Jonas: Five Works," the first major exhibition of her work in a New York museum.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on November 22, 2006 (download PDF).
