Jennie C. Jones: A Free and Shifting Tonal Center

Jennie C. Jones: A Free and Shifting Tonal Center is the artist’s first monograph, exploring her interdisciplinary practice that moves viewers through both visual and auditory engagement. Aurally altering the spaces in which her paintings, sculptures, and installations are on view, Jones’s work encourages viewers to anticipate sound even in the quietest of environments. As she explains, “I always say [the art is] 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.”

Conceptually, Jones’s practice reflects on the legacies of modernism and minimalism while underscoring the connection between minimalism and music, illuminating the influence of the Black avant-garde. Bringing this multi-sensory experience to book form, A Free and Shifting Tonal Center unites documentation of recent exhibitions—including Dynamics, her expansive show at the Guggenheim Museum (2022)—with excerpts of text, poetry, and conversations to create a “score” that reveals the layers of Jones’s artwork. Part artist’s book and part primer, this lyrical volume unfolds in movements, like a printed and bound evening of poetry, prose, and music.

Jennie C. Jones (b. 1968) was born in Cincinnati, OH, and lives and works in Hudson, NY. Her solo exhibitions include Jennie C. Jones: Dynamics, Guggenheim Museum, 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, D.C. (2013); Counterpoint, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA (2011); and RED, BIRD, BLUE, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, GA (2009), among others. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 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). Jones was a Visiting Critic and Faculty at Yale School of Art, Yale University, New Haven, CT and a faculty member in Painting at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College, Annandale-On-Hudson, NY.