American video art pioneer Joan Jonas has opened her first museum exhibition in Korea at the Nam June Paik Art Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. The exhibition, titled "Joan Jonas: The More-than-Human World," opened Thursday at the world's only institution dedicated to the late Korean artist Nam June Paik. Jonas, who received the eighth Nam June Paik Prize last year, is being honored through this exhibition as part of the prestigious prize program.
The timing of Jonas's Korean debut coincides with the relaunch of the Nam June Paik Prize in 2024, which now features an expanded and more globally focused selection system. According to the museum, the updated selection process was designed to strengthen the prize's international relevance and more fully reflect Paik's experimental spirit in today's contemporary art landscape. The prize, originally founded in 2009, underwent this transformation to better serve the global art community.
Curator Kim Yoon-seo highlighted the artistic connections between Jonas and Paik, noting their shared experimental approach but different thematic focuses. "Paik emphasized media's power to connect the world, while Jonas explores peace on a more expansive level – moving across the human, the material and the immaterial," Kim explained. She emphasized that Jonas was not only a pioneer of early video and performance art, but also brought a distinct perspective on femininity and identity that continues to shape artists today.
The personal and professional connection between Jonas and Paik extends beyond their artistic philosophies to their shared history in New York's experimental art scene. Kim revealed that the two artists were actually neighbors, with their homes facing each other on the same street, close enough that they could see each other's windows. "Jonas and Paik shared the early experimental atmosphere of video art as literal neighbors in New York," Kim said, underlining the intimate connection between these two groundbreaking artists.
A major highlight of the exhibition is the large-scale installation "Empty Rooms," where Jonas transforms deeply personal grief into a poetic landscape featuring drifting paper, bare trees, and shadow play. This powerful work intertwines sculptures, drawings, and video elements to explore universal themes of loss, memory, and longing. The piece reflects Jonas's experience of losing many close friends by age 88, with the artist stating on the gallery wall: "Each person leaves an empty room when they leave my life, and that is what this piece is based on."
The "Empty Rooms" installation creates an immersive environment where sheets of cream-colored paper hang lightly in the air, while a nearby wall displays dozens of drawings of a bare tree. The accompanying video component features piano compositions by longtime collaborator Jason Moran, paired with shadow play performances by young girls. This multimedia approach exemplifies Jonas's signature style of fusing different artistic mediums into a cohesive visual language.
The exhibition showcases 41 works spanning Jonas's influential career, including pivotal early experiments from the late 1960s such as "Wind" and "Organic Honey's Visual Telepathy." "Wind," a silent film shot on a Long Island beach in New York in 1968, treats the wind as an active force guiding the performers' movements. This work serves as an early signal of Jonas's enduring interest in nature, the body, and elemental motifs that would continue throughout her career.
"Joan Jonas: The More-than-Human World" will run through March 29, offering Korean audiences an unprecedented opportunity to experience the work of this seminal figure who helped shape contemporary video and performance art. The exhibition represents a significant cultural exchange, bringing together the experimental legacies of both Jonas and Nam June Paik while introducing Korean viewers to Jonas's unique artistic vision that has influenced generations of artists worldwide.
