Ideas - Arts Icon Joan Jonas on Her Great Muse, Cape Breton

Episode Date: October 22, 2024

American arts pioneer Joan Jonas is a central figure in the performance art movement of the late 1960s. This year, New York's Museum of Modern Art organized a major retrospective of her work, which will be on tour in Canada. One of her exhibits is inspired in part by her love for Cape Breton — a 'magical landscape' where she lives in the summer.

My name is Graham Isidor. I have a progressive eye disease called keratoconus. Unmaying I'm losing my vision has been hard, but explaining it to other people has been harder. Lately, I've been trying to talk about it. Short Sighted is an attempt to explain what vision loss feels like by exploring how it sounds. By sharing my story, we get into all the things you don't see

about hidden disabilities. Short Sighted, from CBC's Personally, available now. This is a CBC Podcast. Welcome to Ideas, I'm Nala Ayed. In the 1960s, New York artists were part of a seismic upheaval, expanding the concept of what defines art. One of the standouts of the contemporary art movement was Joan Jonas, an American visual artist and pioneer of video and performance art. be a sculptor, but instead became fascinated with creating live performances incorporating movement, dance, literature, props and masks, as well as her drawings and films. A revolutionary departure from

gallery hung works. Art that was not easily commodified but wildly original and daring. Jonas performed her early work on the streets of New York and in her Soho loft. For me, it was much more dynamic and interesting to enter this other world of live art. Now 88, she has long been celebrated in Europe, including a major exhibition at London's Tate Modern Gallery. But it wasn't until 2024 that she finally received including a major exhibition at London's Tate Modern Gallery.

But it wasn't until 2024 that she finally received her crowning recognition in the United States, when New York's Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, organized a major retrospective of her work. Holland Cotter, a chief art critic at the New York Times, calls her one of the great and still undersung creative figures of our time. An explanation for that lies in the deep biases against female artists of her era. Jonas lives most of the year in her New York Soho loft and studio, but she also has another significant home and muse. Nearly 55 years ago, she joined a group of friends and New York artists who set up summer homes on the stunning coastal cliffs of western Cape Breton, including composer Philip Glass, artist June Leaf, photographer Robert Frank, and Jonas's then

partner Richard Serra, who would become known as one of the greatest sculptors of his time. A fascinating, talented group of extraordinary artists coming to a place then mostly unknown to outsiders, at a time when land was available and cheap, before a luxurious world-class golf course came to the area, along with wealthy summer visitors. Part of Jonas' MoMA retrospective is a piece called Moving Off the Land Too, an ode in part to oceans and Cape Breton.

It has been acquired by the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, and will be exhibited across Canada, beginning in Cape Breton in 2025. Ideas producer Mary Link spent time with Joan recently at her home on the edge of a high cliff in Inverness, Cape Breton. She lives there with her constant companion, a small white miniature poodle called Ozu. It's a simple

wooden home with a studio next to it, but overlooks a breathtaking vista, big sky, a vast expanse of ever-changing water, and spectacular ocean sunsets. When you look out your window here on the dramatic cliff on the west coast of Cape Breton, when you look out here, what do you experience when you see this view? Well, I look out there every day, and it's always different. I think that's one of the things we all love about it is every sunset is different. The water's a different color. And also, I think people look out to the sea. It's the way we are. Once I thought of doing a piece with just

photographing people looking out to the sea. The focus of the piece that the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia is acquiring, it's called Moving Off the Land 2. And this focuses on the ocean. That's right. And its creatures within. And a clarion call in some ways about climate change. In a film that's in this piece, because the piece is obviously, like all your pieces, layered and complex and exquisite. There's a film and as you walk into the ocean,

one of the things you say is you always return to the beginning. What I meant by that is that in studying art history, I'm very interested in how things began. To go back to the beginning means to go back to how things evolved from the very beginning when they were first practiced. And I think art comes from ritual. And moving off the land, you traveled to aquariums around the world? Well, everywhere I went, I took my camera. But I visited aquariums everywhere I went. And so a lot of the footage that you see in my work is me,

what I've recorded in aquariums. And then the fantastic footage shot underwater is by David Gruber. It was interesting. While I was working on this latest piece, or the last two pieces, our knowledge changed a lot. Like there's been a huge amount of research coming out about how animals, like fish, like to be petted. They have memories there. They remember what they did. And all that, that fish are sentient beings, that's come out publicly. I mean, I'm sure that people believe that for a long time, but it's the last 10 years. Like when I first started doing that piece, people would come up to me and say, I didn't know that we came from the sea or things like that.

We didn't know those things then. I mean, as we do now. Yeah, yeah. And there's a very sort of historic part of fish, that there are the origins of us in that sense as well. Yeah, well, I said somewhere, I was just reading, that their semicircular canals are the same as ours. And what's that, semicircular? The semicircular canals are the same as ours. And what's that, semicircular? The semicircular canals in your hearing.

Yes. It's how your hearing functions. Right, right. It's like a little, these little... Echo chambers in your head. Yeah, and little passages. And the fish have the same structures. We come from the sea.

We don't think about it very often, but our semicircular canals are similar to those of the fish. Our eyes are similar. We have backbones. And the fish grew little legs and came out of the sea and then developed into what we are today. There are different theories about how that happened. My idea is that we have a memory of that

somewhere in our unconscious. We remember that we come from the sea. It's not a memory, it's a feeling. It's in our DNA. I think that's where all these stories come from and our desire to go back to the sea, our desire to swim underwater, our desire to swim underwater, which I love to do. to water, our desire to swim underwater, which I love to do. I did love to do. For years, Joan was an avid swimmer, but at 88, swimming is now difficult. Joan's small, a little unbalanced, and needs a cane to walk. But she remains majestic and determined. Joan wants to feel the ocean wash over her again. So we decide to go to a beach about a 30-minute drive away. It's tucked away next to private lands and only known to the locals. In the summer the waters off the west coast of Cape Breton are deliciously warm. So Joan,

little dog Ozu and I get into the car and head to Chimney Corner Beach to return to the ocean, to our ancient memories. As Joan says, when animals did crawl into dry land, they took the sea with them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. No worries. I'm tired. I mean, I can hardly, um, like I worked for this summer. I'm not, but you know, I just did all this work. So I'm hoping I, well, you had a huge retrospective at the moment. No wonder you're tired. But I can only... I do about half an hour, and then I have to lie down. Do you?

Yeah. But anyway. Are you up for the swim? Oh, absolutely. Oh, good. How has Cape Breton shaped you as an artist and as a person? Well, that's a very big question. But I'll begin by saying I came up here with a

group of friends and immediately fell in love with it. It reminded me of my childhood in New Hampshire in the mountains, because Cape Breton has that kind of mountain landscape with the evergreen trees, and the air is so fresh. So that was one thing, the landscape is so beautiful, and the beaches, to be by the sea, I mean, I love the sea. You said you fell in love the first morning. What did you wake up to? I remember the first morning. I was with Richard, we were staying over in Dunvegan at this kind of, in these A-frames. So the first few summers we stayed there. I just woke up and it was beautiful light and the air smelled so good.

And it was just over there in Dunvegan. It's very beautiful in Dunvegan with these green fields sloping to the cliffs and the clay cliffs. It's just, it's amazing. That was my first, my first reaction was to the landscape. It's amazing. That was my first reaction was to the landscape. And then beyond that, to the people and the music. You know, I hate to say it now.

I don't say it anymore, but I'm Celtic, mostly Celtic background. And so it spoke to me very directly. They were still speaking Gaelic. The older people were still, the. They were still speaking Gaelic. The older people were still, the old people were still speaking Gaelic and the music was just amazing, the fiddle playing. The other night I went to see Cameron Chisholm. Have you ever seen him?

He's an amazing fiddle player. He's very old. Anyway, so it's a certain kind of fiddle player. He's very old. Anyway, so it's a certain kind of fiddle playing, and that's how it began. And then the ghost stories, and the fact that I love the idea that they all believe in ghosts. They do, I know. That fascinated me,

because I was very interested in superstitions and belief systems. Not that I, I've never experienced a ghost, but I was very interested in that and their folklore, you know, where they came from. And their stories about where they came from in Scotland and Ireland. All of that spoke to me directly. Do you know, I had a professor once at Dalhousie, English professor, Professor Varma. And he was a specialist in Gothic literature. When he was asked if he believed in ghosts, he said, I don't believe in ghosts, but I'm afraid of them. God, that's a great question, because I'm the same. Yeah? Yeah, I'm afraid to see a ghost.

But you don't believe in them? Well, I don't believe in, I always say I don't really believe in anything. Yeah. But I do recognize that people believe. I mean, I went to Southeast Asia a few years ago in Singapore, and everybody believes in ghosts there, of course. And there's a radio program where people call in to tell their stories about ghosts. Oh, really? Yeah.

Oh, fascinating. But you did say that as you get older, spirituality is entering your life more, I think, or something along that lines? Yeah, it's a different kind of spirituality. I mean, it's always been there. But I didn't talk about it for many years. But now I don't feel, you know, I talk about it more as being something there, but it's always been with me. In the beginning, my study of art history and how things began was really involved with the magic of the past. And I mean, I think about it in a different way now. When I began, I was doing a lot of research about shamanism and ritual of other cultures. You know, there's a lot of that in my work. But gradually, I studied that,

and then I didn't have to talk about it anymore. I didn't have to have it consciously. But as I get older, I'm looking more back at that and talking about it more and opening up about it. Because for a long time, I didn't talk about it. It wasn't something that other people wanted to talk about,

something like that. But up here, everybody's in touch with the landscape in a spiritual way. The people who live here, Cape Bretoners, they love it, right? They love the landscape and the magic in the landscape. Yeah, it's interesting the thing about ghosts it really is because i have friends of mine who i'd never think would say they believed in ghosts but they're true cape brightoners i don't know my husband would actually richard and i bought bought a house down the road and the woman who sold it who grew up in the house anyway but she would come to the house and she would go through the house and say hello to the people in the house you know the ghosts oh really she would open the door and say hello and um so i believed that

the house was haunted so i couldn't sleep in the house i went and slept in the barn and i took my mattress there and i felt much more at ease in the barn where the animals were and there weren't the people the ghosts but you believe in them, like we were saying before? You know, I wanted to see one, but I never did. That's the thing about ghosts. Do you know, we're going to talk about you coming here again. So you came here with Richard Serra, who was your partner at the time. So he's a very famous, you know, American sculptor.

And his friend Philip Glass, the composer, was here. And June Leaf, the sculptor, and she was married to Robert Frank, very much known for the Americans. He's a photographer. But Robert died a few years ago and Richard Serra died in March. Just very recently. Yes, just a few months ago from when we were talking. And June died about a month ago.

I know. These are the people that you came as young, wild, beautiful artists in the 70s, 50 years ago. When we're talking about ghosts, do you feel their presence in that kind of sense here? I mean, not as ghosts, but do you feel their imprint? Oh, definitely. Definitely. I mean, Richard, I lost touch with him, but we were friends for years. We with him but we were friends for years we separated but we were friends for years and he hasn't been up here for about 10 years he hasn't come here no but i still feel his presence just down the road there and june i'm just getting over that

you know that's that'll that's harder because she was a close friend for longer i mean at the end she she lived in new york very near me and she was an inspiration june her work i loved her work i loved her work too and she's a wonderful what is i say a wonderful woman a very um you know special sensibility kind yeah very kind and she had a great sense of humor and uh you know i used to go over we go swimming together and then gradually she's a little older than i am so she couldn't swim so that's a big gap i have to say i think of these people the ones who have when you get older your friends start to go and I think of these absences like empty rooms so there's it's a metaphor for me this empty room for Richard there's an empty room for June in my mind you know that they used to be in it's a strange feeling what what what brought

you and Richard together back in the I guess 60s was it uh late 60s what what drew you and Richard together back in the, I guess, 60s, was it? Late 60s. What drew you to Richard? He's a fantastic person and brilliant and also a great sense of humor. Yeah, all of that. And attractive. That helps. Yeah. But on all levels.

Yeah, on all levels. Yeah, deeper than that. Well, one thing about Richard I could say is he was interested in my work, which no one had been in that way until then. And so I could talk to him about a lot of things that I hadn't been able to talk to people about. So in that sense, he was very inspiring. And then he felt the same way I

did about the land and about the place. Was he complicated too? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. How long were you together? Just about five years. Not that long. I'm not very good at relationships. No. That's okay. Well, you were married before him. Five years, right? Yeah. So maybe it's a five year. But do you like to be on your own?

Is it a preference for you? I think in many ways it's rewarding. I can do a lot of work. And especially in the last years. Actually, Richard said to a friend of mine, Joan never could have done the work she's doing now if she'd stayed with me. Because he was over, you know, he absorbs a great deal of energy and is brilliant. And I just didn't want to have any more complications.

So that's why it ended, one of the reasons. I mean, it didn't totally end but it ended partly have you had a great love since him? have you had other great loves since him? not great loves but one since him one past anyway Richard anyway um richard so he was yeah he was too sick to come up for he hasn't been here for 10 years

yeah that's amazing i didn't realize that long he hadn't been up here so his house is right here it's a house well the old house is right that's where we were when I first came up here, we built this place together. Right. And then when we separated, I sold my part to him. Before Richard, Joan was married to Jerry Jonas. He was a writer, and I took his name. Yeah. And he is a writer. He's still with us. And, yeah, he's a wonderful person. Did you break his heart?

He recovered, I'll put it that way. Did you break Richard's heart? Well, for a few days. For a few days? I'm not proud of that. No, I know. You know what? I've broken someone's heart in the past And I almost thought I'd never find love again because I felt so bad about it

And it was such I mean I didn't say this yesterday. I never say it publicly I'm saying thanks to you you're opening me, but one of the reasons I don't have a relationship is I decided I didn't want to do that anymore break a heart Yeah, I didn't want to that's I mean I do have that tendency a heart yeah i didn't want to that's i mean i do have that tendency you know because my parents were divorced blah blah blah my father was living on a boat never there he would show up and then disappear for the whole year and then show up unexpectedly so i had that all my childhood and i that's my interpretation is that why that's why i can't sustain relationships. I always have to leave first. Yeah.

Do you know what I mean? Anyway. And do you leave still in love? Well, I don't lose my love or my respect. Right. Put it that way. Yeah. But you had one more relationship after Richard.

Was that a serious relationship or just... Um... Not really, no. And... had a serious relationship or just um not really no and but do you mind living without that kind of love does it matter to you oh i don't have that anymore but um um no i i'm i'm lonely yeah you know I would love to have a companion. I miss having somebody to talk to. Yeah. Et cetera, et cetera. I get that.

But, you know, I've really devoted myself to my work. So we're going to turn left at, you know that. Yeah. Of course. And how did the locals react to you initially because cape retiners take a while to get well i'll tell you if you spend the whole year here that's what you should do because that's how the cape retiners accept you and trust you if you really live here like robert and june lived here And that's one of the reasons June is so beloved, and Robert too, but in a different way. But people loved June.

So we don't have that relationship in the same way. But the Cape Bretoners, as you know, are very friendly and generous and accepting. And so you have a different relationship if you don't spend the winter here. But I have friends down the road, you know, who are Cape Bretoners, and they're special people, but we're friends in a different way.

Yeah, I get that. The thing about authenticity, and which is very much so a part of the culture here. And when you were a young artist, you wrote that, quote, nothing is completely new or original. Its beauty or value lies in the sincerity of expression, the closeness to the true nature of the person who made the object. The whole idea that you have to be true to yourself when you're making something. Do you still believe that?

Yeah, I do. But I don't know if it would apply to everybody. But yeah, in the same way. But of course you have to be true to yourself. And I suppose it has to do with a little bit of a reaction against artifice or special effects and technology and how to do with a little bit of a reaction against artifice or you know like special effects and technology and how that how how to work with technology that it's about um for me

to use the technology and not let the technology use you i can see that because you richard bought you a camera when they were first starting to come a video camera when they were first coming out well he didn't buy it oh me. Oh, I was with him. That's the lore. Everybody gives him credit for buying it. No. No. Okay, we'll fix that one right now.

Yes, every time I read about it, it said he bought it for you. Maybe he claimed... We were in Japan together. Yeah. I'll tell you, that's one of the problems, is that another person said he heard that richard made all my props oh really for a long time because he was so strong and so so i had to get through that that was hard i made my props you know but in those days i was a woman next to richard and people

they would not look at me they would look at richard and many women had that of course experience and the art world wasn't very open to women when you were first a young artist in the early 60s. No, it wasn't. There were no women teachers. No women teachers. And plus, art still is a bit of a barrier for women, I think. Well, I think that it hasn't completely shifted from being dominated by male. Yeah. And also, someone larger than life than Richard

would be difficult to stay as an artist in a relationship with him, I can see, for yourself. But in terms of being true to yourself, how do you shed your layers then of all the outside world and everything when you're making art? I don't have, it's not an effort. I just isolate myself and go in a room or my studio or my table and just work.

You know, I don't really, it's not a conscious thing where I have to shut myself off. But you've described it almost like you like to work at nighttime and you say it's almost like a seance. I used to work mostly at night. And why do you say like a seance? to work mostly at night. And well, why do you say like a seance? I love the idea of people sitting with their hands on the table, waiting for something to happen, you know, and something, but nothing like that happened to me. But the seance, it's like putting yourself into another mode of being, you know, of consciousness. And when you make your art, is that do you always do that? Well, I think people do. I think

it's not really mystical. I mean, although it could be, but it's really about going into another space and letting go of old ideas. You're listening to a profile on the artist Joan Jonas on CBC Radio 1 in Canada, on US Public Radio, across North America on Sirius XM, in Australia on ABC Radio National, and around the world at cbc.ca slash ideas. You can also hear ideas wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nala Ayed. My name is Graham Isidore. I have a progressive eye disease called keratoconus, and being I'm losing my vision has been hard, but explaining it to other people has been harder. Lately, I've been trying to talk about it. Short-sighted is an attempt to explain what

vision loss feels like by exploring how it sounds. By sharing my story, we get into all the things you don't see about hidden disabilities. Short Sighted, from CBC's Personally, available now. Ideas producer Mary Link is in conversation with Joan Jonas, a contemporary art pioneer and icon. New York's Museum of Modern Art recently had a major retrospective of her work. And a piece from the show, Moving Off the Land 2, has been acquired by the National Gallery of Canada

and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. Mary and Joan are heading to a beach in Dunvegan, Cape Breton, on a hot summer day, so that Joan, at 88, once an avid swimmer, can finally dip her body into the ocean. While driving along, Mary's car phone unexpectedly rings. It's the boss. Sorry, one sec, I'm just going to do something here.

Uh, hello, Greg. Well, hello, Mary. Say hello to Joan jonas the brilliant artist we're going swimming in uh oh how lovely and it yeah and you should see joan's place up here in inferno studying and her just and almost as stunning as her art i guess they're both studying their own way yeah oh my gosh yes g Greg is the executive producer of my program. Oh, I see. Wonderful. I have to tell you one more thing about Greg. Greg loves Dante

and he's done pieces on it. And one of her pieces, she reads passages of Dante, one of her performance pieces with art and creation. It's all very multilayered. From the Commedia? I called it Reading Dante because

I wanted to read Dante. One of my excuses for doing my work is so I can read certain things that I wouldn't read. So in Italy, they read one of those books a year. So it takes them three years. So I want, so in America, we don't read Dante in school. So I want, and so that's why I did a piece called Reading Dante. and I quote from it

a lot from the first book, because that's the most imagistic. The last one is very abstract. You have to kind of be pretty decent at medieval Italian, because there's a lot of wordplay. Not like ha-ha dad puns, but like wordplay. You know,

Joyce-ian kind of... He makes up words, you know, he makes up a whole bunch of words. Yeah, I don't know Italian well enough to know. Yeah, so, oh, how exciting, how exciting. And yes, Mary's right, we're totally pumped to be having you on. You have two homes for a long time. You have your home here on the cliff,

and you have your home in a loft on Mercer Street, Soho, right? And how does space affect your art, the space that you're in when you're making art? I have an idea when I go to the space, like in New York. Now I have an extra space where I can make bigger things. But space, I've said, is one of the main, most important elements of my work, the consideration of space and how to use it. For instance, when I was studying art history, I was very interested in how painters in the Renaissance on a flat surface made a three-dimensional space. So that's where I, I think that's when I began to think about how space is

manipulated and created. And when I first started making work, I always thought of those Renaissance paintings and putting figures in them and so on. And when I started, I have a piece called The Mirror Piece, which is very choreographed actions of 17 women actually carrying mirrors five feet by 18 inches facing the audience with a mirror facing the audience. And so I was very interested in how that changed the space, how the mirrors, you look at the mirrors and you look at the space. How does that change your perception of the space? So it's about perception and how the space outdoors is so different. So it's about perception and how the space outdoors is so different.

It's the distance and how that space affects sound and movement and so on. Yeah, space is very layered in your pieces because sometimes you'll have... Can I grab some butter? Some butter? It helps my voice. Oh, okay, sure. It's so resting. Have you heard of Lamont Young, the composer? No.

Well, anyway, I was going to study voice with him at one point. Oh, really? 30 years, no, 50 years ago. And I went to his place and they said that I would have to eat a quarter of a pound of butter every day. That's what the Indians do. Oh, really? So I said, no, thank you. Right.

They eat a lot of ghee. Ghee, yeah. It's good for them. Good for the throat. Yes. So you still eat butter when you have to do speaking? Occasionally, if I remember. You're eating right now a cracker with tons of butter on it.

Mm-hmm. I love that. It's delicious, too. Is it? Okay, slow down a little bit. It's going to be soon, but not yet. It's kind of a road that dips like that, doesn't it? It goes to the left.

Yeah. It's a little driveway. That might be it. You'll be cocked today. Oh, no, that's a motorcycle. Yeah. Yeah, this is it. You'll be cocked today. Oh, no, that's a motorcycle. Yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah, this is it. Yeah.

You taught art at MIT, and one of your grad students later said that you were an exceptional teacher and very encouraging that you would tell him when something was good or interesting, but you also weren't afraid to tell your students if their art was bad. And he said, that's rare. And it's a good thing, but it's rare. What makes bad art? Does it have something to do with just talking about authenticity or what makes bad art or art bad?

What makes bad art or art bad? It's very hard to describe. Very hard. It's very relative, and it really depends. I know who said that. That was Sung, one of my ex-students, who's Korean, actually. And we had a friendship, he and I. I have a friendship with a few of my students where we could speak openly. And I think it's important to say what you think.

That's what I think. And I thought it was important to really tell the students what I thought, but without discouraging them. You can't. And also, maybe I'm wrong. You know, maybe it's good. So I think it's difficult. But were there elements, is there elements that make something for you,

at least from your subjectivity or whatever, but that intrigues you about certain art as opposed to other art? Unfortunately, the word beauty comes into it, but it's not just about beauty. I suppose it's partly about, it's about what is beauty, about proportion, and about color and space. It's a very hard question. But it's true. Your work is very beautiful. It is very beautiful and sensual and not beautiful in the pretty sense of a pretty painting. Just, it's moving. I want it to be at that level, but I would never say my art is beautiful, you know, but beauty is an issue for sure. And for the students, it wouldn't be beautiful because that's not fair to impose that on the students.

But it's very hard to say, you know, it would really depend on the situation. If I had a specific example, I could say what it is I don't think that works. It's about how it works. Like I would always tell them to clarify their ideas. And a lot of times they would tell me all about their ideas and what they were doing. And then it wouldn't be in the work, you know, it would be. So I would have to talk to them about that, how to translate their thoughts into form. And I gave them assignments. And I didn't always criticize them. I think it's difficult. But I had conversations with them. And what I liked about teaching

little kids is that they do, kids make very beautiful things. They do. Just like very easily. Yeah, they do. And they're not afraid. No. Your drawings of animals and fish are just exquisite. And the colors you use are also, you have a really beautiful eye for colors as well. Oh, thank you. Yeah. I mean, also when I practice, one of the things I took from my visual art study into what I do now is the drawing, you know, to make drawings. And so if I'm going to make the drawings of fish, for instance,

I practice. I make practice drawings for a day, you know, and then I work it up so that I can really do it. It takes practice for me. What happens to all your initial attempts? Oh, I throw them out. Oh, you do? Well, I mean, I criticize my work in the same way.

I think they're bad or they're not quite good enough or whatever. One of the most fascinating things on my discovery of you, and there's such a wealth of stuff that you've done. And it was this from 1964. And it was your essay on sculpture. It was for your MFA at Columbia, your master's in fine arts. And you were doing sculpture. That was your medium, right? And you wrote in this piece to your professors.

You said, I don't even like sculpture, which I thought was very ballsy. I said that? Yes, you did. I have it. You said, where is it? Let me just find it. Okay, where is that about? Okay.

You said, quote, this was you. So you're in your mid-20s and it's 1964. It might seem strange, but I really don't like sculpture. I think I know vaguely. I liked painting better. You know, I found it more enjoyable. Sculpture was more something I could deal with in a very different way from painting.

So I decided to go very different way from painting. So I decided to go into sculpture and not painting. But when you were doing your master's in sculpture, though, you ended up deciding not to do it, sculpture. I switched from sculpture, which was dominated by men at that time, more or less. There were women, of course, who were making wonderful work who were sculptors. But for me, I just wanted to go into a different, a new territory. So the new territory was working with video and performance at the time. And I related it to sculpture, to my sculpture, because it's a three-dimensional form and it exists in space and so on. So I think the idea of sculpture was very important for me

and the experience I had. And, I mean, I could go back to it, you know, putting things together in a different way. But at that time, I didn't have a way to enter that world. For me, it was much more, you know, dynamic and interesting to enter this other world of live art. What they call now performance art. Yeah. One of the reasons I do what I do is I love working with other people. Not all the time. I have

to be alone sometimes. But I do enjoy working with other people and working with video and film. That was a big influence on me. So so you need figures that move you need something in front of the camera I did a lot of performing myself you know set up the camera and get in front of it and perform I just all of a sudden found something that I really love doing yeah and your use of mirrors was a big part at one point we talked about mirrors and Borghese was that an influence somehow with the mirrors well when I first started I was just starting my work it must have been in the late 60s and Borges had just been translated and I was immediately drawn into Borges's writing because it's also very surreal and it has it and it's about a universe that is infinite

and has a lot of magical things. And the mirrors, he talked about mirrors a lot. And so my first piece that I ever did, I took all the phrases about mirrors from Borges and wrote them down and memorized them. And my first performance was standing in a mirrored costume reciting Borges. And that was how that began. I liked having the mirrors reflect the audience and making them a little bit uneasy

because people are, if you sit at a dining room table and there's a mirror and somebody sees you looking at yourself, you know, you try to hide that. So that made, that interested me, that kind of uncomfortable thing about mirrors. Yeah, you would hold mirrors up that reflected out to the audience and they'd be looking at themselves yeah and also it changed the space but and how did people react then when the when the norm was paintings and

sculptures and well there were tangible things there was a lot of support in in my early work i had a huge amount of support and people would come come. You know, in New York, the art world was small, but it was very concentrated, and it was a very exciting time, and you went to see everything. And artists could afford to live in New York. That's right. The Soho where you moved into had been factories, and so in came the artists. Right, and you didn't need very much money to make something. Now it's very different.

And New York is not the same in any way. No. When you walked out the door from your loft at Soho on Mercer Street 50 years ago, what was it like compared to today? It was very, you know, there weren't all the fancy stores. It was just the factories. And it was a little bit dangerous and empty with people moving in. But it was also like I would tell people who visited me from Europe that they had to at night they had to be ready to run down the middle of the street with a key in the hand. You know, it was it was a little bit like that. What do you mean?

It was dangerous, you know. With a key in your hand to You know, it was a little bit like that. What do you mean? It was dangerous, you know. With a key in your hand to... To get the door open fast enough. Oh, I see. Right, right. But it was just the way I talked to people because Europeans wouldn't have any idea about New York streets. But it was very, you know, there was a lot of work going on. So it was a very exciting time. It was very fertile.

Did you realize how special it was that time in the 60s? Oh, yeah. Yes. Definitely. It was very fertile. Did you realize how special it was that time in the 60s? Oh, yeah. Yes. Definitely. It was very special. And I remember you said you liked to perform outdoors sometimes. You performed in your loft, but also outdoors and nighttime at Wall Street, all these different places I read about. But you weren't drawn to the white cube of the gallery. No. Well, there was a general feeling against it. And also, it was more interesting to put yourself in the street or outdoors or in other places that hadn't. The white cube was like this conventional space.

And to my detriment, because my life would have been easier if I had made things for that situation. But I wanted to stay outside of it. It wasn't about the money. No. It wasn't about money, no. Luckily. Yeah. And then the 80s came. Well, the 80s came and then everybody switched to painting and sculpture. And it was very interesting because I was kind of dropped, my kind of work, but I kept on doing it. And I always had an audience I never lost. So for many years, I said I was an artist, artist.

And I just kept doing the work. And it's brave. Performance is brave. Well, yeah, I was scared a lot. I mean, I used masks in the very early pieces, I mean, I used masks in the very early pieces, partly because I was influenced by the Japanese experience, but partly also to hide my face. Because I didn't want to be Joan Jonas. I wasn't playing myself. I wanted to disguise myself and be another persona. You say that your work and your performances and your films, that it's not about the narrative so much, it's a metaphor. I don't tell stories that are logical or conventional or narratives. Moments in my work represent something in the story, like a metaphor. They're not illustrations of the story. My work is not illustrative. It's more representational of part of the story. more representational of part of the story. Like this one called Reanimation was based on a book by Haldor Laxness, who I love. Have you read his book? No, but I want to because I've been reading

about him because of your work. He's great. So Haldor Laxness, I found him when I went to Iceland to do this project based on an Icelandic saga, this piece called Under the Glacier. One of the reasons I started being concerned with the environment in the work was because I was reading this book called Under the Glacier, and I thought, it was written in the 60s, and now glaciers are melting. So I had to bring that into it. I bring the present into the work and the situation of the present. So glaciers are melting. And then I was drawn from there into other aspects of what's going on in the environment. Part of that piece, I think, was you were drawing with ink and ice.

Which is beautiful, what it made from the combination of the water and the ink. Well, in each one of my pieces, I try to find ways of drawing, ways of making a drawing, ways of making an image. So that was because I was working with the snow and ice. And the way I made that was I poured a little bit of ink on the paper and then put ice cubes in it and, you know, moved them around and made the drawing.

Yeah. You must have been pleased with yourself for that one because they're beautiful. They're really beautiful. You just had a retrospective at the MoMA, which is huge you already had one years before at tate in in england but in america your homeland you hadn't had one but you were a representative at the biennale the finnish biennale which is a big thing but in terms of this being at 87 now you just turned 88 your first retrospective one of the art critics, the chief art critic, co-chief art critic at the New York Times, was wondering why it took so long.

And he said that you are one of the great and still undersung creative figures of our time, which is a huge statement. That's great. And I agree with him. Alan Carter, yeah. Yeah, I agree with him. Holland Carter, yeah. Yeah, I agree with him. Why do you think it took so long to get what we all see? You know, I don't know. People ask me that a lot, and I don't know the answer to that.

I always say, well, ask the curators. You know, ask the art historians out there. I think it has partly to do with my inability to really push it. That's not a good answer. No, but you know what? Marketing is part of it. What? Marketing is part of it. Some artists are really good at that. Yeah, that's true. But your art is so prolific and so meaningful. And so, you know, when people who haven't seen your art, we're talking about performance art, it's so well thought out about performance art it's not it's so well thought out and it's so layered and it's so beautiful somebody said about your art it's not

even the performance it's it's what resonates afterwards it's the memory of your performance and i get what they meant by that because i'm still thinking about your work in my head and um like did you wish you had recognition earlier even though you're not a marketer? Yeah, you do? I did. A little bit. Yeah, I did. But I kept going.

But I had the... People like Richard loved my work. So that kept me going, was people like that who were supportive. And many people like that. So that's what kept me going. And it was important to have certain people's interests. Like, yeah, I had many people who were interested. It was just the general public and the system.

What was it like then at the MoMA when it opened and you saw your work there? It was exciting. Well, I mean, I was also much more recognized in Europe. You know, I had shows not only at the Tate, Munich, Madrid. You know, that show went to different places in Europe. But it was best in New York because it was filled out quite a bit. It was much more complete. Why is that, that you were more recognized in

europe do you think well when i started working in the early 70s many of us artists were invited to europe it was much more receptive to the kind of work that we were doing so many people were you know brought to europe and recognized at that time and then that went on so so many people i've been in many documentas and um yeah i don't know why i did think that this show at moment came at the right time yeah after all these years that it could be what it is it wouldn't have been that way 10 years 15 years ago it wouldn't have had the richness of your and also the the work it's very important that it had very early work and then the latest work which is about the environment about fish and about different subjects so it's good that it had all

that in it so i'm happy about that yes okay i'm going to ask you a simplistic but difficult question why do you create art? I have to. I have to. I mean, the minute I started working as an artist, that's what I have to do. It's involuntary in a way. It began that way.

I have to do it. It's my life now. Not before I started making it. It began that way. I have to do it. It's my life now. Not before I started making it. And I love art. I've always loved art. I've always loved to look at it. But that's not why I make it. You know, you could love art and not

be an artist, of course. That's what's good about art. That inspires so many people. And also, it's a communication. I can communicate. I think I had no, like when I started making art, I would go to a party and stand in a corner and be totally terrified and not talk to anybody. I'm not like, it gave me a language. My work over the years gave me a language so that I could finally talk. so that I could finally talk.

Here we go. I'm going to use my cane just to get down to the edge. What are we doing? We're walking to the edge and we're going to plunge into the water, I guess. I hope. That's what I plan to do. Who knows? This is my first swim for a year.

It's very exciting. That I'm doing it with someone, with a friend. And I'm not going to go out too far. But the only way I can do it is to plunge. It's not cold. I mean, when we first started coming up here, it was much colder. You know, 50 years ago, it was much colder. I don't have any balance. You know, 50 years ago it was much colder. Oops! I don't have any balance. I mean, it doesn't matter if I fall.

The reason this is happening this way is because I'm 88. Yes. But you know, it's warm. But I don't want to go out there. I'm just going to go... I'm going to hold onto your arm. That'll be better. It's just about balance. And I'm going to hold onto your arm. That'll be better. It's just about balance. And I'm going to go in any minute.

The ocean has such a profound meaning in Joan's life. And moving off the land too, her piece that Canada has acquired is an ode to the oceans and the environment. And also to the late marine biologist and writer, Rachel Carson. I dedicated this piece to Rachel Carson because she was such an important seer of what was to come. And I remember, I don't know what year it was, I remember when the silent spring came out, and it was such a shock and a revelation. It was radical at that time.

And people did not anticipate that. Of course, now, everything that she said has come true. Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring, was first published in 1962. It exposed the hazards of the pesticide DDT and is said to have awakened a new environmental consciousness. And I also think that Rachel Carson's a great writer, and I think the way she writes about nature, she's very poetic. She's actually a writer, a poet. That's what I think.

Joan reads a piece of Carson's writing that is included in her moving off the land, too. But many of the young shrimp will in time find and approach the dark bulk of some loggerhead sponge, and, entering it, will take up the strange life of their parents. Wandering through its dark halls, they scrape food from the walls of the sponge. As they creep along these cylindrical passageways, they carry their antennae and their large claws extended before them, as though to sense the approach of a larger and possibly dangerous creature,

for the sponge has many lodgers of many species, other shrimps, amphipods, worms, isopods, and their numbers may reach into the thousands if the sponge is large. And so I knelt upon the wet carpet of the sea moss and looked back into the dark cavern that held the pool in a shallow basin. The floor of the cave was only a few inches below the roof, and a mirror had been created in which all that grew on the ceiling was reflected in the still water below. Underwater that was clear as glass,

the pool was carpeted with green sponge, gray patches of sea squirts glistened on the ceiling, and colonies of soft coral were a pale apricot color. In the moment when I looked into the cave, a little starfish hung down, suspended by the merest thread, perhaps by only a single tube foot. It reached down to touch its own reflection, so perfectly delineated that it might have been not one starfish, but two. The beauty of the reflected image of the limpid pool itself was the poignant beauty of things that are ephemeral, existing only until the sea should return to fill the little cave.

should return to fill the little cave. I'm just going to sit down pretty soon. Okay. I help Joan lower down to the shallow waters close to the shoreline. Unable to swim, she simply allows the waves to crash over her body. Her face lights up with joy. It's great. You know, we always have to get used to it, so I'm trying to get used to it. If I get used to it, then I can stay in longer.

Whoa! Oh, you okay? Yep, I'm fine. I'm just sitting on the sand. And I'm... Oh! Oh, but it's great. It's amazing. I've never had it like this here. But I probably wouldn't do this if I had come by myself. I mean, the thing is, it's so funny because I get knocked around a lot more easily than I used to, you know? How does it feel? Oh, it feels great.

It felt so good to have the water batter my body. You know, the waves to push me around and to be submerged in the waves and to be in the water. That's what I come here. One of the things I want to do when I'm dear is to be in the sea. I think it's very good for your body and your soul. It's the most familiar place. very good for your body and your soul. It's the most familiar place. I'm going to turn over and...

Still in the water. I mean, it's so warm. It's amazing. You're lying to understand that... I am. What about you? Aren't you going to come in? I have to stop recording you. Yeah, but I'll be all right. You can just leave me alone. I'll be fine. But it's wonderful just to be in the water. You were listening to a profile on the celebrated contemporary artist Joan Jonas. It was by Ideas producer Mary Link.

You can go to our website, cbc.ca slash ideas to see additional material and photos of her work. Technical production Danielle Duval and Pat Martin. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. Senior producer Nikola Lukšić. Greg Kelly is the executive producer of Ideas and I'm Nala Ayed. For more CBC podcasts go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.