Jonas is a pioneer of video/performance art. Her experiments and productions in the late 1960s and early 1970s were essential to the formulation of the genre. Her influence was crucial to the development of contemporary art in many genres; from performance and video to conceptual art and theater.
During the past decade, Jonas has collaborated with composers such as Alvin Lucier to develop collaborative video-performance works, and has performed and toured with The Wooster Group. Her most recent work continues to explore the relationship of new digital media to performance. Jonas is currently developing a performance for the Museum of Modern Art in Dublin where three of her installations will also be included.
Jonas has had major retrospectives at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1994), and Galerie der Stadt Stuttgart, Germany (2000), and was represented in Documenta 11, Kassel, Germany (2002). In 2004, the Queens Museum of Art presented Joan Jonas: Five Works, the first major exhibition of the Joan Jonas’s work in a New York museum. The exhibition included a selection of the artist’s most significant installations, a video room, and a survey of Jonas’ drawings, photographs, and sketchbooks.