Perception comes gradually, when the mind is quieted enough for awareness to seep in, and even then, it is never fixed. Mingling visual and aural work, lineage and legacy, Jennie C. Jones: Dynamics infuses the Guggenheim Museum with minimalist abstractions and tonal callings. The first Black woman to have a solo exhibition in Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic rotunda, Jones throws open long-held narratives of art history, expanding the tracings of inspiration and influence to include both Black and female histories. Mining a vein of work in which paintings stand as sculptures, music is rendered in graphic statements, and color becomes a source of light, Jones’s work throws us off balance, requires us to shift and reposition ourselves in response to her slow reveals. As her gentle harmonics roll down from the oculus, the space itself seems to sway and expand.
I spoke with the artist from her home in Hudson, NY, where she was taking a breath just after the exhibition’s opening. Jones holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and MFA from Rutgers University, and we spoke about how her early days as an art student shaped the path she continues to navigate in her work. Along the way, we chatted about her influences in art and music, moments of woodshedding, and the importance of getting lost.
Ann C. Collins (Rail): It was really exciting to stand in the middle of the Guggenheim and to be surrounded by your work. The work and the way it fills the space is amazing.
Jennie C. Jones: Thank you! It’s meant so much to hear how people are responding to it, especially because making the work was such an insular process. Even regardless of COVID, I’m very private and insular. It’s also been strangely challenging to have to talk about myself so much.
Rail: You’re in Hudson right now—are you living there full-time?
Jones: Yes, I moved from Brooklyn to Hudson. I was teaching at Bard for a couple of summers and so I had an early peek at the Hudson Valley before it became the next Brooklyn. I enjoy being in this kooky, weirdo, Upstate small town, although now it’s getting hip. So now, when I’m in town, chances are I’ll hear my name and see someone from college. But I was feeling like it was time for a move and knew that I would never be able to afford any sustainable anything in New York. So now I’m right in the town. I can walk to the train. One of my neighbor’s sons rehabbed a building that has studio space, so I got really lucky.
Rail: You grew up in the Midwest. How do you think that shaped you?
Jones: I grew up in a little hamlet outside of Cincinnati, Ohio. I hate to make the reference, but it’s a total Pretty in Pink vibe, where my parents moved us over the railroad tracks for the better school district. So, from the start, I was the weirdo, othered, poor kid. Sometimes I was the only Black kid in the classroom. But it was an amazing school system. And I really wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am in my life without that early education. In high school I had a great art teacher who was very encouraging. He called my mom and begged her to let me into the AP art classes. So when I got to college at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), I already had some studio credits under my belt.
Rail: What was it like to leave a small town and to go to Chicago for art school?
Jones: One thing about art school is you’re with the weirdos from every school. You’re the only weirdo in your high school and then you show up at art school and everyone has the same backstory of being the weirdo. So there was definitely a comfort in going from Ohio to the Art Institute, because I found a lot of kindred spirits very young. It was an intense time, 1987 to 1991. There was a lot of crazy politics. I think the Art Institute was, honestly, the most formative time for me. Because it’s a museum school, there was no student housing, so I was looking for apartments, learning to navigate a big city. Multiculturalism was an ism. Lucy Lippard’s book, Mixed Blessings, appeared and blew our minds away. Everyone was taking their first Women’s Studies class, their first Black Studies class in tandem with art history. I think to this day my experience at SAIC shapes the ways I navigate my relationship to art history, and where I am in that history.
I don’t think there’s enough art history being taught today, not as much as when I was in school, and it breaks my heart. Someone who’s in grad school should know who Robert Rauschenberg is. Women painters working with pigments need to know who Helen Frankenthaler is. This is basic canon. I emphasize the importance of knowing art history when I speak to students today, the idea that they have to learn it to push against it.
Rail: Do you think there is a generational attitude that history is no longer relevant? Or do you think institutions err in keeping students happy above requiring coursework they may view as dry?
Jones: I think it’s a combination of both. I think art school is a bit of an industry now. There’s not enough rigor. I feel like an old person saying this, but I’m sorry, you should have to write a paper to get your Masters. You should have to write an artist’s statement. What are you going to do when you graduate and you have to apply for grants, and you have to know how to talk about your work and contextualize it in the contemporary universe?
