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Left Side Right Side

Left Side Right Side
Usage Conditions Apply
Artist
Joan Jonas, born 1936
Sitter
Joan Jonas, born 1936
Date
1972
Type
Time-Based Media
Medium
Single-channel video (black-and-white, sound); transferred to digital
Dimensions
Duration: 8:50 min.
Topic
Joan Jonas: Female
Joan Jonas: Visual Arts\Artist\Video artist
Portrait
Credit Line
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Restrictions & Rights
Usage conditions apply
Copyright
© Joan Jonas
Object number
NPG.2018.52
Exhibition Label
“When I started working with video, I thought of crawling into the monitor,” artist Joan Jonas said of her early experiments with the medium. “I imagined the monitor was a box that I could crawl into.”
In Left Side Right Side, Jonas stands between two cameras and looks into a mirror while a monitor displays the live video feed. At certain points, she holds up a mirror to bifurcate her face and attempts to identify the side of her face to which she is pointing. By editing together various iterations of her image, Jonas stages a self that is fundamentally fragmented, multiplied, and mediated, qualities that are amplified by video’s closed-circuit structure. The artist, whose groundbreaking, genre-defying practice was recently the subject of a retrospective at the Tate Modern, represented the United States at the 2015 Venice Biennale.
“Cuando empecé a trabajar con video, quería meterme dentro del monitor”, comentó Joan Jonas de sus primeros experimentos con el medio. “Imaginaba que el monitor era una caja donde podía meterme”.
En Lado derecho lado izquierdo, Jonas se sitúa entre dos cámaras y mira a un espejo mientras el monitor muestra la acción en vivo. En ciertos momentos sostiene el espejo de tal forma que bifurca su rostro, e intenta identificar a qué lado de su cara apunta con el dedo. Al unir en el montaje varias iteraciones de su imagen, la artista presenta un yo básicamente fragmentado, multiplicado y mediado, rasgos a su vez amplificados por la estructura de circuito cerrado del video. Jonas, cuya práctica pionera desafió los géneros del arte, ha sido objeto de una retrospectiva en el Tate Modern y representó a Estados Unidos en la Bienal de Venecia de 2015.
Data Source
National Portrait Gallery
Exhibition
20th Century Americans: 1960-2000
On View
NPG, South Gallery 342