Parallel Practices: Joan Jonas & Gina Pane brings together a selection of works by two artists born a short time apart who are renowned for their foundational contributions to the field of performance art. Jonas (U.S., born 1936) and Pane (France, 1939-1990) are proto-feminist artists who, while living in New York and Paris respectively, created multidisciplinary works at a time when many of their peers focused their attentions on a single medium. Through selections of their sculpture, photography, video, drawing, installation, and performances, Parallel Practices celebrates the shared and complementary aspects of Jonas’ and Pane’s art, and highlights the differences that characterize their unique bodies of work. While Joan Jonas’ work is well known to American audiences, Parallel Practices marks the first comprehensive exhibition of Gina Pane’s work in the United States.

Mirror Check, a work created by Joan Jonas in 1970, will be performed in the galleries for the final six weeks of Parallel Practices: Joan Jonas & Gina Pane at the Henry. In Mirror Check, a performer uses a small round hand-held mirror to inspect all visible parts of her exposed body. Mirror Check — one of Jonas’ earliest works — marks an important theoretical and artistic turning point in her practice, when mirrors cease to be a material utilized in her sculptures and become actual instruments in her live performances.