Jennie C. Jones
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Biography
Jennie C. Jones (b.1968) was born in Cincinnati, OH and lives and works in Hudson, NY. Her interdisciplinary practice seeks to engage viewers visually and aurally. Drawing on painting, sculpture, sound, and installation, Jones’s conceptual works reflect on the legacy of modernism and minimalism. Their unconventional materials and reductive compositions highlight the perception of sound within the visual arts.
After graduating from Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts in 1996 with her MFA, Jones created a series of drawings and collages that directly reference music and listening technologies. Featuring exactingly rendered line drawings of speakers and cables and found image collages of sound systems, these works led Jones to begin to break down the components of audio devices. Elaborating on these drawings, in the 2000s, Jones began to use acoustic ephemera (cables, noise canceling instruments, CD jewel cases, etc.) in her artwork—what she has referred to as the “physical residue of music.” Transforming these prosaic materials into elegantly spare sculptures and installations, looping cables so that they became graphic lines, she adopted the conceit of sculpture as drawing in space. At the same time, these works capitalize on the potential of repurposed sound equipment to suggest audibility through its absence. In contrast, her most recent large-scale sculptures are mechanisms to produce sound—their forms capable of being played by the wind.
Further articulating the relationship between sound and physical matter, Jones’s ongoing series of Acoustic Paintings incorporate noise-absorbing acoustic panels. The minimalist works juxtapose these panels with solid and two-tone expanses of color, and draw on imagery that recalls the geometry of musical notation, including bars, crescendos, and measures. Developing alternative ways to illustrate sonic experiences, other paintings from the series boast narrow strips of pigment applied along the edges of their canvases—an effect that causes their compositions to resonate with an echoed glow of color. Meanwhile, more recent Acoustic Paintings interact with the architecture of the spaces they inhabit, escaping the confines of the wall and becoming sculptural as they engage with the floor. Encouraging viewers to anticipate sound even in the quietest of environments, Jones states that the acoustic panels in the paintings are always “active.” As she explains, “I always say they’re active even when there’s no sound in the room; they are affecting the subtlest of sounds in the space—dampening and absorbing even the human voice.” Reinforcing this connection, the Acoustic Paintings frequently use musical devices—e.g. the tritone—as organizing principles for their structure. Seamlessly integrating visual practices with auditory ones, the works underscore the connection between minimalism and music, recovering the legacy of the Black avant-garde.
In support of this recovery, for more than a decade, Jones has created sound pieces that microsample and distort disparate recordings. The resulting audio collages, which take Black avant-garde sonic movements as their source material, continue the artist’s project of challenging the dominant narrative of modernism by foregrounding African American cultural histories. Expanding on the conceptual ideologies that shaped these histories, Jones’s newest works combine sound with large-scale installations and sculpture. These expansive pieces challenge the vernacular of modernism, emphasizing the artist’s interest in, in her own words, “the merger of art history and music history . . . [and] exploring the abstract languages they construct.” Advocating for a holistic approach to the twentieth-century canon, these works and others by Jones ultimately bring to light the systemic inequalities that shape who and what is seen and heard.
In 2024, Jones was announced as the artist selected for the final chapter of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Roof Garden Commission, producing her first multi-work outdoor sculptural installation for the Museum’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden in 2025. Previous solo exhibitions include Jennie C. Jones: Dynamics, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY (2022); Jennie C. Jones: Constant Structure, The Arts Club of Chicago, IL (2020); Compilation, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, TX (2016); Absorb/Diffuse, The Kitchen, New York, NY (2013); Directions: Jennie C. Jones: Higher Resonance, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (2013); Counterpoint, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA (2011); and RED, BIRD, BLUE, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, GA (2009), among others. Her work has been included in many group exhibitions, including In With The New..., Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA (2022); Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America, New Museum, New York (2021); Prospect.5: Yesterday we said tomorrow, New Orleans, LA (2020); Ground/work, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA (2020); Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition, The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC (2020); The Shape of Shape, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (2019); Magnetic Fields: Expanding American Abstraction, 1960s to Today, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, traveled to National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC (2017); The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL (2015), traveled to Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA (2016); Outside the Lines; Black in the Abstract, Part 2: Hard Edges/Soft Curves, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, TX (2014); and Silence, The Menil Collection, Houston, TX (2012), traveled to Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, University of California, CA (2013). Jones’s work is in the collections of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, NY; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Pérez Art Museum, Miami, FL; Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA; Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago, IL; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; and Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT, among others. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Anonymous Was A Woman Award (2017); Rose Art Museum, Ruth Ann and Nathan Perlmutter Artist-in-Residence Award (2017); Robert Rauschenberg Award (2016); Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (2013); The Studio Museum in Harlem, Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize (2012); and William H. Johnson Prize (2008).
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Exhibitions
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Jennie C. Jones
Tonal Center 7 Mar - 20 Apr 2024 New YorkAlexander Gray Associates, New York presents Jennie C. Jones: Tonal Center, the artist’s third solo exhibition with the Gallery. Turning to the geometry of musical notation, hushed colors often activated...Read more -
"A sheet of paper casts a shadow."
16 Sep - 30 Oct 2022 GermantownAlexander Gray Associates, Germantown presents 'A sheet of paper casts a shadow.” This group exhibition features a selection of works on paper by six Gallery artists, Ricardo Brey, Luis Camnitzer,...Read more -
Jennie C. Jones
New Compositions 9 Sep - 23 Oct 2021 New YorkAlexander Gray Associates, New York presented Jennie C. Jones: New Compositions , an exhibition of 2021 paintings and drawings. In these works, Jones continues to explore the perception of...Read more -
Subliminal Horizons: Part 2
20 Aug - 3 Oct 2021 GermantownSubliminal Horizons: Part 2 Germantown August 21 – October 3, 2021 Alexander Gray Associates, Germantown presented Subliminal Horizon, the second iteration of an exhibition curated by Alvin Hall . Subliminal...Read more -
Subliminal Horizons: Part 1
2 Jul - 15 Aug 2021 GermantownAlexander Gray Associates presened Subliminal Horizons: Part 1, an exhibition curated by Alvin Hall as an open-ended survey of Black, indigenous, brown, and Asian artists living and working in the...Read more -
Subliminal Horizons
1 Jul - 13 Aug 2021 New YorkSubliminal Horizons New York July 1 – August 14, 2021 Alexander Gray Associates presented Subliminal Horizons, an exhibition curated by Alvin Hall as an open-ended survey of Black, indigenous, brown,...Read more -
Between the Lines
11 Sep - 17 Oct 2020 New YorkAlexander Gray Associates, New York presented Between the Lines, a group exhibition of recent and historic sculptures and works on paper by Luis Camnitzer, Jennie C. Jones, Hassan Sharif, Valeska...Read more -
Jennie C. Jones
Passing Tones and Broken Chords 14 Aug - 8 Nov 2020 GermantownAlexander Gray Associates, Germantown presented Jennie C. Jones’ first exhibition with the Gallery, Passing Tones and Broken Chords. The show features new 2020 Acoustic Panel Paintings that further expand on...Read more
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Public Collections
Art Institute of Chicago, IL
BNY Mellon, Pittsburg, PA
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, NY
Cleveland Museum of Art, OH
Deutsche Bank, New York, NY
Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Washington State University, Pullman, WA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA
Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY
Mott-Warsh Collection, Flint, MI
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, IL
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Pérez Art Museum Miami, FL
Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA
The Rose Art Museum, Waltham, MA
The Smart Art Museum, Chicago, IL
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
University of Maryland Art Gallery, College Park, MD
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
Weil, Gotshal & Manges, New York, NY
The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ -
News / Events
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Jennie C. Jones
Gagosian June 1, 2023Jennie C. Jones is included in the group exhibition To Bend the Ear of the Outer World: Conversations on contemporary abstract painting curated by Gary Garrels at Gagosian in London, UK
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Bethany Collins and Jennie C. Jones
International Print Center New York October 8, 2022Bethany Collins and Jennie C. Jones included in the group exhibition Visual Record: The Materiality of Sound in Print at the International Print Center New York.
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Jennie C. Jones
Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago September 22, 2022Bathany Collins and Jennie C. Jones included in the group exhibition Monochrome Multitudes at the Smart Museum of Art at The University of Chicago in Chicago, IL.
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Jennie C. Jones
Hirshhorn Museum August 2, 2022Jennie C. Jones included in the group exhibition Put It This Way: (Re)Visions of the Hirshhorn Collection at the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C..
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Jennie C. Jones
Patron Gallery June 4, 2022Jennie C. Jones's one-person exhibition Jennie C. Jones: Nocturnes at Patron Gallery, Chicago, IL.
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Harmony Hammond and Jennie C. Jones
Hill Art Foundation May 12, 2022Harmony Hammond and Jennie C. Jones included in the group exhibition No Forms curated by Margot Norton at Hill Art Foundation in New York.
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Jennie C. Jones
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art April 9, 2022Jennie C. Jones included in the group exhibition Shifting the Silence at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
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Jennie C. Jones
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum March 24, 2022Jennie C. Jones and poet Fred Moten will discuss "Jennie C. Jones: Dynamics," followed by Moten's reading of his experimental text "The Red Sheaves" and a musical performance by musicians Brandon Lopez and Cecilia Lopez.
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Us Them We | Race, Ethnicity, Identity
Worcester Art Museum March 17, 2022The Worcester Art Museum's group exhibition, Us Them We | Race, Ethnicity, Identity, featuring works by Melvin Edwards, Jennie C. Jones, and Lorraine O’Grady will have a discussion led by Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College and specialist in visual culture studies, Kimberly Juanita Brown, Ph.D. as a part of Master Series Third Thursday programs.
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Jennie C. Jones
Temple University Tyler School of Art and Architecture February 23, 2022Jennie C. Jones delivers the Jack Wolgin Visiting Artist Lecture at Temple University's Tyler School of Art and Architecture
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Jennie C. Jones
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum February 4, 2022Jennie C. Jones: Dynamics, a one-person exhibition of new and recent work by the interdisciplinary artist, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.
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Jennie C. Jones
Center for Maine Contemporary Art February 2, 2022Jennie C. Jones included in Walk the Line a group exhibition curated by Timothy Peterson at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockland, ME.
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Jennie C. Jones
Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University January 28, 2022Jennie C. Jones's group exhibition Soundwaves: Experimental Strategies in Art + Music at the Moody Center of Arts at Rice University in Houston, TX.
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Jennie C. Jones
Swiss Institute / Contemporary Art New York January 21, 2022Jennie C. Jones included in Beneath Tongues, a group exhibition curated by Sable Elyse Smith at the Swiss Institute / Contemporary Art New York, NY.
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Jennie C. Jones
Artnet News January 19, 2022Jennie C. Jones's work is highlighted in a review of the Prospect 5 triennial by Ben Davis for Artnet News.
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Jennie C. Jones
Texas Monthly December 21, 2021Jennie C. Jones mentioned in Texas Monthly.
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Articles / Reviews
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Press
The Art Angle Podcast: Jennie C. Jones on Why You Should Listen to Her PaintingsFebruary 25, 2024 Link -
The New York Times
Jones, February 10, 2022
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