Over the course of history the ocean has played a key role, representing a totemic, spiritual and cultural reference, often turning into an inspiration for fashion designers and artists as well.
The latest one is Joan Jonas, whose exhibition "Moving Off the Land II", an in-depth research on aquariums around the world and on the waters off Jamaica, will open at the end of the month at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (Paseo del Prado, 8, Madrid, Spain; from 25th February to 18th May 2020).
Curated by Stefanie Hessler, director of the Kunsthall Trondheim in Norway, and commissioned by TBA21, the event, including sculptures, drawings, sound and video production, was first installed last year at Ocean Space in Venice.
The starting point for this exhibition was a performance entitled "Moving Off the Land" (that will be replicated on 26th February 2020 at the Museo Nacional del Prado) that combined literature and mythology with sketches and notes on the sea by the artist.
The piece was originally commissioned in 2016 by TBA21-Academy – TBA21's platform promoting the conservation of the oceans through interdisciplinary artistic projects. But, since then, the work evolved and turned into a sort of avant-garde action performed in Vienna, Reykjavik, New York, London, San Francisco and Venice.
In the performance, projected underwater images alternated with a voice-over that reciting extracts from Moby Dick by Herman Melville (1819-1891), The Soul of an Octopus by naturalist Sy Montgomery (born Frankfurt, 1958) and the essay Undersea (1937) by the marine biologist Rachael Carson (1907-1964). The combination of powerful images characterised by bright and bold colours and texts perfectly contributed to take visitors onto an underwater journey among beautiful aquatic creatures.
In the installation at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza visitors will see a selection of drawings created by the artist in her New York studio, based on her research on aquariums around the world, including a large original drawing of a whale, accompanied by a sound installation with sounds emitted by sperm whales from recordings provided by marine biologist and expert in coral reefs and photosynthesis David Gruber.
The exhibition also includes the sculpture Aquarium, a glass box that represents a mountainous underwater landscape and displays various marine species. The box was made in Venice by local craftsmen from a design by Joan Jonas that is in turn inspired by a 19th-century postcard.
The videos that will be featured at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum are also particularly powerful: they introduce the five new versions of the installation "My New Theater", created for Ocean Space, a venue located in the historic church of San Lorenzo, in Venice.
Each video, projected in a box-like space, is devoted to a different subject – mermaids, mirrors, octopuses, whales and Jamaican fishermen. The film material in the performances is interspersed with new images, including shots of bioluminescent creatures filmed by David Gruber, and spoken word sequences and movements recorded in Joan Jonas' studio in New York.
The result is a homage to the oceans and their animal life, to biodiversity and ecology, as well as a wake-up-call on the effects of climate change and species extinction.
Murano glass mirrors scattered around the edge of the installation complete the exhibition: recurring elements in Jonas' work, mirrors are usually employed to blur the distance between the works on display and the viewer.
But in this space they create a greater sense of spatial depth and of vertigo, reminding us that we are all parts of the ecosystem, interdependent with other species and posing us one disturbing question – human activity has speeded up the effects of global warming and, as a consequence, many animals are dying, will we be the next species to disappear?
Image credits for this post
1 – 3.
Installation view.
Joan Jonas. Moving Off the Land II, Ocean Space, Venice, 2019. Photo: Enrico Fiorese | TBA21-Academy
4 – 9. Joan Jonas. Moving Off the Land, 2019, Ocean Space, Chiesa di San Lorenzo, Venice. Performance with Ikue Mori and Francesco Migliaccio. Commissioned by TBA21–Academy. Foto: Moira Ricci. © Joan Jonas