Preparatory sketch for Double Lunar Dogs

Description

‘Double Lunar Dogs’ is an acrylic painting on canvas created by Joan Jonas during her stay in Eindhoven for the eponymous performance, performed in May 1981 at the Van Abbemuseum. Her video work ‘Double Lunar Dogs’ (1984) emerged from this performance.

‘Double Lunar Dogs’ is based on the science fiction novel ‘Universe’ by Robert Heinlein, in which the inhabitants of a spaceship have forgotten where they are going and where they came from. The ‘generation ship’ has thus become their world. However, among the inhabitants of the lower floors of the ship is a curious woman who, aided by the ‘Double Lunar Dogs’, escapes to the upper floors.

In the performance, the museum functions as a spaceship, and Jonas uses drawings, props, sound, light, and film. As a central figure, Jonas is shadowed by a second woman, her doppelganger, who represents a separate part of her soul. One aspect of the performance is the inability to see beyond one's own perspective.

Trained as a sculptor, Jonas became interested in performance art in the mid-1960s. She developed a personal visual language that combined elements of dance, sound, and physical objects with the conventions of Japanese Noh and Kabuki theater traditions.

Jonas later wrote that the support she received from the Van Abbemuseum at the time was crucial to the creation of her publication ‘Joan Jonas: Scripts and Descriptions: 1968-1982’, which includes footage of the 1981 performance.

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