Ideas - We’re drawn to the beauty of the ocean. An artist reveals why

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

"We come from the sea. It's not a memory. It's a feeling. It's in our DNA," Joan Jonas told IDEAS producer Mary Lynk at her home in Nova Scotia. The arts icon, now 88, has been celebrated for her work since the late 1960s. She splits her time between a Soho loft in NYC, and the "magical landscape" of Cape Breton, where she can be by her muse: the ocean. In 2024, she received her crowning recognition in the U.S., when New York's Museum of Modern Art organized a major retrospective of her work. Part of Jonas' MoMA retrospective called Moving Off the Land II has been acquired by the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. The exhibit will tour across Canada this summer, beginning in Cape Breton.

When a body is discovered 10 miles out to sea, it sparks a mind-blowing police investigation. There's a man living in this address in the name of a deceased. He's one of the most wanted men in the world. This isn't really happening. Officers are finding large sums of money. It's a tale of murder, skullduggery and international intrigue. So who really is he? I'm Sam Mullins and this is Sea of Lies from CBC's Uncovered.

Available now. This is a CBC Podcast. Welcome to Ideas. I'm Nala Ayaad. 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. Jonas was originally going to 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 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 Zara 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's MoMA retrospective is a piece called Moving Off the Land 2, and owed 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 is 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 is called Moving Off the Land and the Art Gallery Nova Scotia is acquiring is 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 a 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, I went 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 is shot underwater is by David Gruber. Right. 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 in your hearing.

Yes. It's how your hearing functions. 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, I did love to do. underwater, 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 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, 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 poem and no wonder you're tired. But I can only, I do about 50, a 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 Kate 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 and 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 and then beyond that to the people and the music. 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 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 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. I know.

That fascinated me because I was very interested in superstitions and belief systems. Not that 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. 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 those 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. 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 Bretoners. I don't know if my husband would. Actually, Richard and I 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 you would open the door and say hello and 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 did 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 American sculptor.

And his friend, Philip Glass, the composer, was here. And June Leaf, the sculptor and his friend Philip Glass, a 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 and Richard Serra died in March. Just very recently. Yes, just just just a few months ago from when we're talking and June died about a month ago. 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 separated, but we were friends for years. And he hasn't been up here for about 10 years. Oh, really? No. But I still feel his presence just down the road there. And June, I'm just getting

over that. You know, that's harder because she was a close friend for longer. I mean, at the end, she lived in New York, very near me, and she was an inspiration, June. I loved her work. I loved her work too. And she's a wonderful, what is, I say, a wonderful woman, very special sensibility. Kind. Very kind. And she had a great sense of humor. And you know, I used to go, 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 got, 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 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 can 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, you know, 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 are you together? Just about five years. 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? long. I'm not very good at relationships. No. That's okay. We were married before him five years, right? Yeah, maybe it's a five year. But do you like to be on your own? Is it preference for you? I think in many ways, it's very 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, you know, so that's why it ended, one of the reasons. I mean, it didn't totally end, why it ended, one of the reasons. I mean, it didn't totally end, but it ended partly. Yeah.

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, 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 brought this place together. Right. And then when we separated, I first came up here. We were in 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. Ah, did you break Richard's heart? Well, for a few days. For a few days.

Only a few. I'm not proud of that. No, I know, you know what? I've broken someone's heart in the past and I almost felt I'd never find love again Only if you... I'm not proud of that. That's... No, I know. You know what? I've broken someone's heart in the past and I almost felt I'd never find love again because I felt so bad about it and it was such a... 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... I mean, I do have that tendency, you know, because my parents were divorced, blah 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 that's my interpretation, that's why I can't sustain relationships. I always have to leave first. 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.

But you had one more relationship after Richard. Was that a serious relationship or just... Um... Not really, no. Is that a serious relationship or just... 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... No, I'm lonely.

Yeah. You know, I would love to have a companion. I miss having somebody to talk to. Yeah. You know, I would love to have a companion. I miss having somebody to talk to, etc., etc. I get that. You know, I really devoted myself to my work. So we're going to turn left at, you know that? Yeah. And how did the locals react to you initially?

Because Cape Bretoners take a while to get to know. Well, I'll tell you, if you spend the whole year here, that's what you should do. Because that's how the Cape Bretoners 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 I don't have that, 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? Of course, yeah, I do, 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, you know, like special effects and technology and how to work with technology. That it's about, 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. He didn't buy it. Oh, I was with him. That's the, that's the lore. Everybody gives him credit for buying it. No. No. Okay. We'll, we'll fix that one right now. Yes. Every time I read about it and 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, you know, sometimes larger than life than Richard would be difficult. It'd 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, you know, 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 night time and you say it's almost like a seance. I used to work mostly at night. And 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, 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 SiriusXM, 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. Hey there, I'm Nala Ayed. conversations your friends will be talking about. Whether you listen on a run through your neighborhood or while sitting in the parking lot that is the 401, check out This Is Toronto, wherever you get your podcasts. 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 second, I'm just gonna do something here.

Hello, Greg. Well, hello, Mary. Say hello to Joan Jonas. The brilliant artist. We're going swimming. Oh how lovely. Yeah and you should see Joan's place up here in Vanessa studying and almost as stunning as her art I guess. They're both studying their own way. Oh my gosh. 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 welcome there. From the commedia? From the commedia? No, 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 I wouldn't read.

So in Italy they read one of those books a year, so it takes them three years. So in America we don't read Dante in school. 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, Joicin 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 in on Mercer Street, Soho, right? And how does space affect your art when you're 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 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 of 17 women actually carrying mirrors five feet by 18 inches facing the audience or the 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. 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 have some butter? Some butter? It helps my voice. Oh, okay, sure.

It's so raspy. Have you heard Lamont Young, the composer? No. Well anyway, I was going to study voice with him one point. Oh really? About 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. I love that. It's delicious, too. Is it? Is it?

Okay, slow down a little bit. It's going to be soon, but not yet. We have to just- Kind of a road that dips like that, doesn't it? Goes to the left. Yeah. It's a little driveway. That might be it. You'll be packed today. Oh no, that's a motorcycle. Yeah. Yeah'll be cocked today.

Oh no, that's a motorcycle. Yeah, yeah, it is. 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 was a good thing. But it's rare. What makes bad art? Does it have something to do with

just talking about it'll be authenticity or what what makes bad art, or art bad? It's very hard to say to describe 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 Seung, one of my ex-students, who's Korean actually. And we had a friendship, he and I, and 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 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. That'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 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. What happens to all your initial attempts? Oh, I throw them out.

Oh, you do? Well, I mean, I think I always 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 I, 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 masters in fine arts and it 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 policy. I said that.

Yes, you did. I have it. I have it. You said, where is it? Let me just find it. Okay. Where is that about? Okay. You said, quote, this was your, so you're in your mid 20s and 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 into sculpture and not painting. But when you were doing your masters 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 might, I could go back to it, you know, putting things together in a different way. But at that time I didn't, 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.

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 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 when we talked about mirrors. And Borges, 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' writing, because it's also very surreal and it has, it's about a universe that is infinite and has a lot of magical things. And then 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 memorize them. And my first performance was standing in a mirrored costume reciting Borges. And that was how that began. 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 to the audience and they would be looking at themselves. Yeah, and also it changed the space but. And how do people react then when the when the when the norm was paintings and sculptures and tangible things.

There was a lot of support in my early work, I had a huge amount of support. And people would come, you know, in New York, the art world was amount of support and people would 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 so... An artist could afford to live in New York. That's right. The Soho where you move 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,

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

yeah. Yes. Definitely. It was very special. Did you realize how special it was that time? Oh, yeah. Yes. Definitely. It was very special. And I remember you said you didn't, you like to perform outdoors. Sometimes you would perform in your loft, but also outdoors and nighttime at Wall Street, all these different places I read about, but you didn't, 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 and... 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 use 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. Like this one called representational of part of the story. Like this one called Reanimation was based on a book by Haldur 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 Haldur 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. I was. 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, move 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 England, but in America, your homeland, you hadn't had one, but you were a representative at the Biennale, the Venice 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 a great. And I agree with him. I'll encounter him. Yeah, I agree with him. I'll encounter him. 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 be really push it, 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 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 like, did you wish you had recognition earlier, even though you're not a marketer?

Yes. I did. A little bit, yeah. I did. But I kept going. People like Richard love my work. That kept me going was people like that who were supportive, and many people like that. That's what kept me going. And it was important to have certain people's interest

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 not, it was best in New York

because it was filled out quite a bit. It was much more complete, but. 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 many people, I've been in many documentaries. And yeah, I don't know why. I did think that this show at the moment came at the

right time. 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 Okay, I'm going to ask you a simplistic but difficult question. Why do you create art? I have to. I mean, the minute I started working as an artist, I just that's what I have to do. It's just it's it's involuntary. In a way 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. Oof! I don't have any balance. You know, 50 years ago it was much colder. Oop. 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. 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. I'll just, 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 she's, 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. 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 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! Are we okay? Yep, I'm fine. I'm just sitting on the sand. Oh! Get that, no. Oh, but it's great. It's amazing, and I've never had it like this here.

But I probably wouldn't do this if I'd 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? It feels great. 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 why 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. of your body and your soul, it's the most familiar place. I'm gonna turn over and still in the water. I mean, it's so warm, it's amazing. You're lying on your stomach.

I am. What about you? Aren't you gonna come in? I have to stop recording you coming. 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 Lake.

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 Lukcic. Greg Kelly is the executive producer of Ideas. And I'm Nala Ayed. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.