Jennie C. Jones. | Photo by Joshua Franzos
THE UNIQUE PRACTICE of Jennie C. Jones (b. 1968) has gained increasing attention and more prominent platforms in recent years. A sonic and visual artist, Jones works across painting, sculpture, sound, and installation. In 2022, her exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York was historic, marking the first solo presentation of a Black female artist in the museum’s rotunda. Next year, Jones will install her work on the rooftop of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Her latest recognition is the 2024 Heinz Award, which includes a $250,000 prize.
The Heinz Family Foundation announced the 29th annual awards on Sept. 17 with Jones and Gala Porras-Kim recognized for achievement in the arts. Named in honor of U.S. Sen. John Heinz (1938-1991), the awards celebrate excellence in fields of profound interest to the late senator: arts, science, and the environment. 2024 awards went to nine recipients.
Jones was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and lives and works in Hudson, N.Y. Her conceptual practice draws connections between complex social and cultural histories, considering the exclusion of Black artists in the history of modernism and how the roots of avant-garde and experimental jazz parallel the foundational ideas of Minimalism and abstraction.
The work often takes the form of painted acoustic panels. At the Guggenheim, for example, Jones presented a new body of work—architectural felt and acoustic panels, sound-absorbing diptychs and triptychs activated by the acoustics of the museum space. “These (Mournful) Shores” (2020), her outdoor sculpture featured in “Ground/work” at the Clark Institute in Williamstown, Mass., was a contemporary interpretation of an Aeolian harp. With its strings activated by wind and weather, Jones envisioned the work in dialogue with two Winslow Homer paintings in the Clark’s collection, seascapes of the Atlantic Ocean the artist read as portraits of the Middle Passage.
“With or without a sonic element, it is my intention that these acoustic panel paintings create a hush in the spaces they occupy.… My artworks lean into the objecthood of painting with nuance and grace. In doing so, I hope to expand the viewers’ expectation and preconceived ideas about what Black cultural production looks and sounds like.” — Jennie C. Jones
In a statement Jones said: “Those who encounter my work will hopefully experience a need to pause and be inspired to investigate further—rewarded with close looking. With or without a sonic element, it is my intention that these acoustic panel paintings create a hush in the spaces they occupy. I consider them to be always ‘working,’ active not passive. My artworks lean into the objecthood of painting with nuance and grace. In doing so, I hope to expand the viewers’ expectation and preconceived ideas about what Black cultural production looks and sounds like.”
For her 2025 Roof Garden Commission at The Met, her first outdoor installation of multiple works, Jones will “explore the sonic potential of stringed instruments as well as their formal possibilities. In Jones’s unique response to modernism, these acoustic sculptures propose the line of the string as a proxy for art history, unbroken and continuous.”
Jones is joining an exceptional group. In 1994, the first Heinz award went to filmmaker Henry Hampton, whose production company, Blackside, made the landmark documentary series “Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Movement.” Hampton was the sole recipient that year. In subsequent years, Heinz awards went to Sanford Biggers, Kevin Jerome Everson, vanessa german, Ralph Lemon, Rick Lowe, and Cauleen Smith, among others. Last year, Kevin Beasley and Roberto Lugo received the Heinz Awards for the arts.
“We honor Jennie for her deeply contemplative, multidimensional compositions that reframe minimalism and engage us in experiences that are both visual and musical,” Heinz Family Foundation Chairman Teresa Heinz said in a statement. “Jennie’s work defies established genres, interlacing elements of sound, space, color and objects in ways that are profoundly moving. Her layered works are immersive, inviting us to reflect and ponder while experiencing moments of subtle beauty and meaning. The enduring impact of her compositions, together with the intellectual curiosity and artistic excellence she brings to her work are wonderful reflections of the spirit of The Heinz Awards.” CT
SEE FULL LIST of 2024 Heinz Award recipients
FIND MORE about Jennie C. Jones on her website, Instagram, and at Alexander Gray Associates
Speaking about an installation of her works in 2020, Jennie C. Jones explains her acoustic panel paintings. “I consider them active as paintings because they are absorbing even the human voice and they’re silencing a room even when it’s already quiet,” Jones said. “It’s taking the silence to a deeper level and I think that they have a presence because they’re active.” | Video by Alexander Gray Associates
A brief introductory look at “Jennie C. Jones: Dynamics” (sans narration), the artist’s 2022 solo exhibition at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. | Video by Guggenheim Museum
BOOKSHELF
Published earlier this year, “Jennie C. Jones” offers a primer on the conceptual artist’s practice and documentation of recent exhibitions. “Jennie C. Jones: Compilation” documents her mid-career survey at the Museum of Contemporary Art Houston. Edited by Valerie Cassel Oliver, the catalog includes essay contributions from Hilton Als, Huey Copeland, and George Lewis. The work of Jennie C. Jones is also featured in “Ground/work,” which documents the first outdoor exhibition at Clark Institute in Williamstown, Mass. The sculptural exhibition features six contemporary artists, including Jones.
