Event Calendar

Showing Performance

Performance: Joan Jonas' "Mirror Check"

Saturday, May 25 | 2PM

Join us for Mirror Check, a performance work created by Joan Jonas in 1970. The work will run every Saturday at 2PM for the final 8 weeks of Parallel Practices: Joan Jonas & Gina Pane. In Mirror Check, a performer uses a small round hand mirror to inspect all visible portions of her exposed body in reflection. As one of Jonas’ earliest works, Mirror Check marks an important theoretical and artistic turning point for the artist as she transitioned from using mirrors as media in her sculptures to using it as an instrument in her performance. Jonas remarks:

It was a logical development and kind of abstraction of a solo work, standing nude in front of an audience, examining one’s own body with a mirror very slowly. It’s a very simple piece. There is the stipulation that it has to be done by women because that’s how it was originally performed and seen, and meant to be seen because it’s about a woman looking at her own body, having control of that gaze.*

*This quote is from an interview between Joan Jonas and CAMH staff during an in-house interview on 2-21-13.