Joan Jonas is a world-renowned artist whose work encompasses a wide range of media including video, performance, installation, sound, text, and sculpture. Her experiments and productions in the late 1960s and early 1970s continue to be crucial to the development of many contemporary art genres, from performance and video to conceptual art and theater. Her practice explores ways of seeing, the rhythms of rituals, and the authority of objects and gestures. 

Jonas received a BA from Mount Holyoke College in 1958 and an MFA in Sculpture from Columbia University in 1965. She has exhibited, screened, and performed her work at museums, galleries, and in large scale group exhibitions throughout the world. She has recently presented solo exhibitions at the US Pavilion for the 56th Edition of the Venice Biennale, Italy; Tate Modern, London, UK; Museu Serralves, Porto, Portugal; Pinacoteca de São Paulo, Brazil; Dia Beacon, NY; Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany; The Drawing Center, New York, NY; and The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. Jonas is the recipient of many awards including The Whitechapel Gallery Art Icon, the Maya Deren Award given by the American Film Institute, and the Lifetime Achievement Award given by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.