Joan Jonas’s Mirror Piece I & II (1969/2024)
I came for a performance, but then a face happened.
Part of Joan Jonas: Good Night Good Morning
When I arrived, just five minutes before start time for Joan Jonas’s Mirror Piece I & II (1969/2024) at MoMA, I stood towards the wings of a crowded, U-shaped viewing area. There were no seats left, not even on the floor. I realized my bum knee—I’ve had a metal rod in my leg since I was a teenager—might not make it for the length of the performance. Already contemplating an early escape, I felt a body stand near me. I turned to look, and all at once, Peg was there, familiar as ever. I blurted out her name.
I never do this. Whenever I think I recognize someone who I haven’t seen in a long time, I usually do a double take. Not many people look the same as they did a decade ago, not really. It’s not like I even knew Peg very well. She’s a former professor of mine. I was a shy student at the time, with odd ideas about how I should only speak up in class twice per session. In retrospect, I think it was a type of control mechanism. Otherwise I would want to talk all of the time, and not always eloquently. I once answered the question, “Who was Walt Whitman?” with “Walt Whitman was a weirdo.” I meant that in a good way, but I doubt that was a graduate-school hit.
We read Levinas in Peg’s class, which left a mark on me about the importance of the face-to-face encounter. We began to speak but then the performance actually, finally started. Unless my knee pain was really bad, I knew I would stay for the duration of the performance because of the face, her awareness of me, and our time tied into it.
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I did end up enjoying the performance. Despite having seen clips online, being there and being present brought about a different sense of the work.
Tucked away at the wings, I thought I’d be safe from having my awareness documented and any latent narcissism confirmed. I was admittedly uncomfortable with the leisurely pace at which the performers walked around the stage. Like with meditation or acupuncture, a few minutes into the process, my body eventually slowed down from its caffeinated, multi-tabbed, techno-soundtrack life to enter a different temporal state. 2024!
The strength of the performers was impressive, which could be missed in video documentation. There were some calves that were casually placed over mirrors, but that, if you looked closely enough, seemed to shake from muscle strain. Until this viewing of Mirror Piece, I’d never thought about the number of different ways someone can hold a mirror. There was even one person holding the mirror out in front of them with their fingers that felt slightly wrong and somewhat painful, despite them making it seem so calm. I don’t want this to be confused with the type of repetitive strain Philip Glass-type pieces put on performers—this was an ordinary type of muscle use, and an ordinary type of graceful.
I was allowed so much detail and intimacy in watching these performers, so letting the mirrors register the audience’s gaze is a small price to pay. After all, the performance has reminders of death, too. In one part, the main figure in the performance could not be revived with mirrors. Mirrors can show breath, a sign of life. As Peg pointed out to me after the performance, the mirrors only showed the audience to each other, as an “undulating” mass. It was a performance about being faced with each other.
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Thank you for reading my quickly typed review, typos, wordiness, stylistic errors, and all. I have way too many thoughts to add to this, but if I do, I’ll never make it on time to a child’s birthday party.
Also, if I see you in public at an art thing and I act socially awkward, that’s one way you’ll know it’s me.