Joan Jonas

Left Side Right Side

1972

Video (black and white, sound)

Not on view

“I thought of the monitor as a box into which I could crawl,” Jonas once remarked. Following Vertical Roll (1972), the artist continued experimenting with black-and-white, single-channel video as a rich medium for reflecting and refracting images of the body. In Barking American dancer Simone Forti moves around the frame led by the sound of her dog barking. For Left Side Right Side Jonas repeatedly marks or points to her features in front of the camera, showing the differences between a mirror and a monitor. Finally, in Disturbances, Jonas captures a pool’s reflection, documenting how both the water, acting as a mirror, and the monitor distort the image of the body.

Gallery label from

Joan Jonas: Good Night Good Morning, March 17–July 6, 2024

Medium Video (black and white, sound)
Duration 8:50 min.
Credit Purchase
Object number 533.1992
Department Media and Performance

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Joan Jonas

Joan Jonas

American, born 1936 30 works online

Few artists can claim to have initiated a new form of art. Joan Jonas, however, was crucial to the formation of two— video and performance .

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