At 89 years old, renowned American artist Joan Jonas has unveiled her groundbreaking installation "Empty Rooms" as part of her first major museum solo exhibition in South Korea. The exhibition, titled "The More-than-Human World," is currently on display at the Nam June Paik Art Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, showcasing decades of work that challenges traditional boundaries between humans and the natural world.
The centerpiece installation "Empty Rooms" emerged from Jonas's personal reflections on loss and memory. "It occurred to me about a year ago that each person leaves an empty room when they leave my life," Jonas explained, referring to the countless friends, both human and animal, she has lost over her long career. The installation captures this profound sense of absence through a carefully orchestrated arrangement of visual elements.
The "Empty Rooms" installation features a haunting collection of bare tree images and drifting paper, all interwoven beneath shifting bands of light and shadow. Cream-colored paper sculptures hang suspended in the air, glowing from internal illumination, while a solitary doghouse sits prominently on the floor. One wall displays dozens of drawings depicting leafless trees, creating a forest of memory and loss. A continuously looping video combines shadow play with jazz piano compositions created by Jason Moran, Jonas's longtime artistic collaborator.
This latest work exemplifies the visual languages of sculpture, drawing, and video that Jonas has been developing and refining since the 1960s. The installation serves as a perfect representation of her artistic philosophy, which seeks to explore relationships beyond human-centered perspectives and embrace what she calls the "more-than-human world."
The exhibition coincides with Jonas receiving the prestigious Nam June Paik Prize, making her the first recipient of the award's reimagined format. Originally established in 2009, the biennial prize initially recognized mid-career artists known for experimental approaches. Following a comprehensive restructuring, the prize was relaunched in 2024 with an expanded mission: to honor contemporary artists whose work advances media experimentation while promoting themes of peace and mutual understanding.
"Jonas's practice reveals the possibility of a world beyond human exceptionalism, where humans and nonhumans coexist and the values of interdependence come to the fore," explained Park Nam-hee, director of the Nam June Paik Art Center, describing the jury's reasoning for selecting Jonas as the inaugural laureate of the restructured prize.
The award also represents a meaningful reunion between Jonas and the late Nam June Paik, two pioneering figures who helped define 20th-century video art. The artists were once literal neighbors in New York City, living close enough to see into each other's windows, sharing both physical proximity and artistic innovation that would influence generations of media artists.
The comprehensive exhibition features 41 works that trace the complete arc of Jonas's creative evolution. The collection spans from her earliest video and performance pieces created with portable cameras to the more complex multimedia installations she has developed since the 1980s, consistently pushing beyond human-centered perspectives to include nonhuman entities as active participants in her artistic narrative.
Among the early works on display is "Wind" from 1968, a silent film shot during winter on the beaches of Long Island. In this groundbreaking piece, Jonas allowed fierce coastal winds to dictate and control the performers' movements entirely. Rather than treating nature as a mere backdrop or setting, the artist positioned natural forces as active protagonists and collaborative partners in the performance, establishing a theme that would define much of her later work.
Jonas's artistic trajectory took a significant turn in 1970 during a transformative trip to Japan, where she purchased her first portable video camera. The ability to see images as they were being captured proved revelatory for her artistic development. This technological breakthrough led to works like "Organic Honey's Visual Telepathy," where Jonas shifts fluidly between her own identity and that of her created avatar, Organic Honey. The piece reveals the complex relationship between reality and its mediated representation through the camera's lens.
Her persistent presence as both creator and subject in her own performances aligned perfectly with the rising feminist movement in the United States during the early 1970s. This was a crucial historical moment when mass media portrayals of the female body were coming under increased scrutiny and criticism, making Jonas's self-representation particularly significant and politically relevant.
By the late 1980s, Jonas began directing her artistic attention more deliberately toward what she terms the "more-than-human world." This shift marked a new phase in her career, where she increasingly incorporated nonhuman perspectives and experiences into her multimedia works.
A prime example of this evolution is "Beautiful Dog" from 2014, which centers on Jonas's own dog, Ozu. For this innovative piece, she attached a tiny camera to Ozu's neck, ensuring that all footage would authentically reflect his movements, perspectives, and experiences as he wandered freely through the Canadian landscape. The resulting video footage is intentionally flipped upside down and often shakes rhythmically with Ozu's breathing patterns. By positioning Ozu as both performer and co-creator, Jonas deliberately dissolves traditional boundaries between species and challenges viewers to consider nonhuman perspectives.
The exhibition "The More-than-Human World" will remain on display at the Nam June Paik Art Center through March 29, 2026, offering visitors an extended opportunity to experience Jonas's decades-spanning exploration of interspecies collaboration and environmental consciousness in contemporary art.
