Ice Drawing

Directed by Joan Jonas

The video and sculptural installation Ice Drawing (2012) is one component of Jonas’s masterwork installation, Reanimation (2013). It features footage of Jonas creating an abstract drawing using ink and ice (a gesture that she carries out live during the performance). In the installation at the MFA, the projector’s light is refracted through a set of hanging crystals, spilling throughout the gallery and onto our bodies. Each fragment reveals all the spectral components of light, including colors that are imperceptible to the human eye. Implicated in the moment, and connected by the refracted constellation, we watch as the ink spills onto a pristine surface, and ice melts.