Snakes and Butterflies is a special project by the extraordinary and visionary American artist Joan Jonas (b.1936). This edition includes images of snakes and butterflies, taken from a sketchbook with pages of various colors that the artist created during the production of “The Shape the Scent the Feel of Things” (2004-2007), and were inspired by the writings of the German art historian Aby Warburg(1866 - 1929).

Between the late 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, Warburg visited the southwest of America to experience the rich culture of the indigenous populations of that area, namely the Hopi. In particular, he wrote about the snake dance that Jonas would later witness in a Hopi pueblo during her trip to Arizona in the 1960s which she was deeply influenced by.

A world-renowned artist, Joan Jonas' work encompasses a wide range of media including video, performance, installation, sound, text, and sculpture. Joan’s experiments and productions in the late 1960s and early 1970s continue to be crucial to the development of many contemporary art genres, from performance and video to conceptual art and theatre.

Snakes and Butterflies includes reproduced and enlarged drawings, printed with pigment on handmade paper, and the plates are enclosed in a special numbered and signed portfolio, published by Noire Gallery.

Available