Joan Jonas: Good Night, Good Morning

A comprehensive retrospective of work from one of the foremost performance artists to emerge from the 1970s

Since her earliest performances in the late 1960s, Joan Jonas has concerned herself with animation and moving images, asking what it means to move images, or to be moved by them. The artist constantly returns to her ever-expanding archive of images, sounds, gestures, ideas and places, reworking materials into new forms across the decades. Published in conjunction with the artist’s most comprehensive retrospective in the United States, presented by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Good Night Good Morning spans more than 50 years of her remarkable career and features works in all mediums—including videos, drawings, notebooks, photographs and major installations and performances.
The abundantly illustrated publication features essays by curators and scholars that delve into the political, social and historical impact of Jonas’ working method, a suite of oral histories gathered specifically for this project and a new photographic portfolio by the artist Zoe Leonard. Featuring extensive archival materials, many previously unpublished, this monograph sheds new light on Jonas’ unique role as a trailblazing figure of video and performance, and highlights her enduring multimedia legacy for generations of younger artists.
Born in New York City in 1936, Joan Jonas is a pathmaking figure in video and performance art, and one of the most important artists to emerge from the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 2015 she was the sixth woman artist to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale. She lives and works in New York and Nova Scotia, Canada.