In company of winds, trees and dogs, Joan Jonas unveils 'more-than-human' world

Now 89, American artist Joan Jonas has watched more friends — humans and animals — depart than she can bear to count. “It occurred to me about a year ago that each person leaves an empty room when they leave my life,” she said. This year, Jonas gathered the quiet weight of those losses — the companions gone, the memories fading — and laid them bare in a single room. “Empty Rooms,” her latest installation, was unveiled at the Nam June Paik Art Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. It features images of bare trees and drifting paper, intertwined under bands of light and shadow. Cream-colored paper sculptures hang in the air, glowing from within, while a doghouse sits on the floor. One wall is crowded with dozens of drawings of a leafless tree. A video loops nearby, pairing shadow play with jazz piano compositions by the artist’s longtime collaborator, Jason Moran. The installation, which weaves together the visual languages of sculpture, drawing and video that Jonas has explored since the 1960s, serves as a fitting centerpiece for “The More-than-Human World,” her firstWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times