Ever Present: Joan Jonas, Mirror Piece I & II (1969/2024)

Performance in Ever Present series
Four individuals stand in a line outdoors, each holding a large mirror that reflects the grassy area and onlookers in front of them.

Mirror Piece I, 1969, Joan Jonas. Performance view, Bard College, Annandale-on Hudson, New York, 1969. Courtesy the artist and Gladstone Gallery

Jul 13 and 14, 2024

Getty Center

Arrival Plaza

This is a past event.

About

Groundbreaking artist Joan Jonas has created multidisciplinary works since the 1960s that investigate perception through radical uses of video, sculpture, installation, drawing, and performance. For this rare presentation of her iconic performance work Mirror Piece, first held in 1969, the artist revisited her original notes to update and reconstruct it as Mirror Piece I & II (1969/2024). Fifteen dancers will traverse Getty’s Tram Arrival Plaza while manipulating mirrors in synchronized choreography. By reflecting their surroundings, the mirrors blur the boundaries between performers and audience and become a means for challenging forms of representation and hierarchies of gender.

As Jonas recalls, "The mirror was a metaphor for me. A device to alter the image and to include the audience as reflection, making them uneasy as they view themselves in public." Mirror Piece I & II (1969/2024) is performed by a cast gathered from across Los Angeles’ dance and experimental performance communities, led by Joan Jonas Studio and movement director Nefeli Skarmea.

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