You just begin’ The Observer ... it’s time travel, of a kind. Since 1998 Ms. Jonas has also taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, winning respect as an educator of character, and has had an immeasurable impact on artists over subsequent generations. Which, obviously, is the least interesting thing for an art exhibition to tell you. Jonas comments that her interest in layers stems from "the way our brains function. The curators of Joan Jonas’ retrospective are at pains to tell you she is a Very Important Artist. Jonas is one of the most significant artists in the history of video and performance. Reanimation brings together many of the elements of multi-layered materials and meanings which Jonas has explored throughout her practice. Joan Jonas: ‘You don’t know what you’re doing sometimes. Read more … Watch these acclaimed artists on their different approaches to working with moving images. It’s not just images that she layers and transforms but space and time. It was at the time of the feminist movement affecting both men and women who could use this medium to express themselves in a poetic way. Joan Jonas, believing that sculpture and painting were exhausted mediums, became known for her pioneering work in performance and video art. She said: My work is all about layering, because that’s the way our brains function. Joan Jonas is a true original whose approach to art has had a groundbreaking impact on the world of video and performance. The video features a selection of prominent artists, from Bill Viola to Joan Jonas. Jonas, who studied sculpture and art history, was deeply influenced by the work of Trisha Brown, with whom she studied dance, as well as John Cage and Claes Oldenburg, particular in their exploration of non-linear narrative structure and form. The layers, the layers, the layers of things. Joan Jonas’s large survey exhibition at Tate Modern (2018) highlighted the contemporary relevance of this pioneer of performance art in her juxtapositions of analogue and virtual methods. Joan Jonas is a key figure in performance, installation and video art and has maintained her position as a pioneer in these genres since the 1960s - her influence crucial to the development of important aspects of contemporary art. Interestingly, despite being a key figure within small artistic circles, during this time Jonas's work became more widely known in Europe than it did in the United States. The artist Joan Jonas doesn't fit neatly into any particular -ism or easily defined art jargon tag because she defies them; Jonas just is. ... Jonas’s hands, a live camera and a TV set function as both mirror and shallow stage. The legendary American artist here offers insight into the creation and themes – such as feminism and environmental changes – of a selection of her intriguing video installations. The John Hansard Gallery presents the first major exhibition in the UK of one of the most influential artists working today. For these reasons, the Inamori Foundation is pleased to present the 2018 Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy to Ms. Joan Jonas. Joan Jonas, believing that sculpture and painting were exhausted mediums, became known for her pioneering work in performance and video art. ... She weaves together and layers sounds, images, objects and movement. Joan Jonas was born in 1936 in New York, where she lives and works. After studying sculpture and art history she became one of the founding figures of performance when it first emerged in New York in the 1960s and 1970s.