Ronald Jones (Interdisciplinarian)
Encyclopedia
Ronald Jones an artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

, critic
Critic
A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...

 and educator who gained prominence in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 during the mid-1980s. In the magazine Contemporary, Brandon Labelle wrote: “Working as an artist, writer, curator, professor, lecturer and critic over the last 20 years, Jones is a self-styled Conceptualist
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...

, spanning the worlds of academia and art, opera and garden design, and acting as paternal spearhead of contemporary critical practice. Explorative and provocative, Jones creates work that demands attention that is both perceptual and political.” Labelle positions Jones along the leading edge of a “contemporary critical practice” that is perhaps best described as interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary.

1980s

Jones graduated in 1974, with a bachelor of arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 degree from Montomery, Alabama's Huntingdon College
Huntingdon College
Huntingdon College, founded in 1854, is a coeducational liberal arts college in Montgomery, Alabama, United States. Related to the United Methodist Church, the college's central hallmarks are faith, wisdom, and service. The college is known for providing a solid academic experience based on good...

. He completed an MFA
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...

 degree in sculpture from the University of South Carolina
University of South Carolina
The University of South Carolina is a public, co-educational research university located in Columbia, South Carolina, United States, with 7 surrounding satellite campuses. Its historic campus covers over in downtown Columbia not far from the South Carolina State House...

, followed by a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Arts at Ohio University
Ohio University
Ohio University is a public university located in the Midwestern United States in Athens, Ohio, situated on an campus...

 where he wrote about a collaboration between Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett
Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...

 and Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art...

. In 1983 he was included in a group exhibition titled "A Likely Story," at Artists space in New York City which was curated by Valerie Smith
Valerie Smith
Valerie Smith is a left wing social activist who lobbies against violent pornography, violent rap music, and other allegedly misogynist content in Canadian media...

 and included Gretchen Bender, David Cabrera
David Cabrera
David Cabrera may refer to:*David Cabrera Pujol, Mexican footballer*David Arnoldo Cabrera, Salvadoran footballer...

, and Jeff Koons
Jeff Koons
Jeffrey "Jeff" Koons is an American artist known for his reproductions of banal objects—such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces....

. In 1985 he moved to New York City and two years later had his first solo exhibition at Metro Pictures Gallery
Metro Pictures Gallery
METRO PICTURES is a New York City art gallery founded in 1980 by Janelle Reiring, previously of Castelli Gallery, and Helene Winer, previously of Artist's Space...

. In the New York Times, Roberta Smith wrote: “Mr. Jones's main goal seems to be to thwart the eye with formal incoherence and an overload of written information that the mind must digest before his pieces make sense. But the sense made is never visual. Instead, if one wades through the long illustrated paragraph that constitutes each work's title, learning the artwork or event that each component represents, a kind of odd and often frightening poetic logic accrues.”
Jones is represented by Metro Pictures
Metro Pictures
Metro Pictures Corporation was an American motion picture production company founded in late 1915 by Richard A. Rowland . Louis B. Mayer who worked for Metro Pictures Corporation early on. It is not to be confused with MGM which is a much later franchise concerning itself, Goldwyn and Louis B....

 where his last of six solo shows was in 1998.
Jones began his curatorial practice in 1986, when he assembled The Public Art Show with a catalog designed by Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler is a U.S. artist and photographer. From the late 1970s onwards, Lawler's work has focused on the presentation and marketing of artwork. Much of this work consists of photographs of other peoples' artwork and the context in which it is viewed...

 and a poster by Barbara Kruger
Barbara Kruger
Barbara Kruger is an American conceptual artist. Much of her work consists of black-and-white photographs overlaid with declarative captions—in white-on-red Futura Bold Oblique or Helvetica Ultra Condensed...

. He went on to organize eleven exhibitions for New York City galleries (Metro Pictures, Lehmann Maupin and Josh Baer) and European and Scandinavia
Scandinavia
Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

ny institutions ("Dark Side of the Moon," Stockholm Cultural Capital of Europe Arkipelag project, 1998 and Magasin 3 Projekt Djurgårdsbrunn, 2003).

In 1987, he began writing criticism for Arts Magazine
Arts Magazine
Arts Magazine was monthly magazine devoted to fine art. It was established in 1926 and last published in 1992. It was originally called The Art Digest and was earlier published semi-monthly from October to May and monthly from June to September. It was later renamed Arts and finally, Arts Magazine...

and Artscribe
Artscribe
Artscribe , titled Artscribe International from 1985, is a defunct British contemporary art magazine. It was notable for its commitment in the late 1970s and early 1980s to abstract art, and for giving popular art critic Matthew Collings his first break into contemporary art.-Founding and early...

. Soon after, he began contributing articles, essays and reviews to Frieze
Frieze (magazine)
-Publication:frieze is published eight times a year and is based in London. As well as essays, exhibition reviews and columns by forward-thinking writers, artists, critics and curators, the magazine includes music reviews, artist projects, interviews and sections on design and...

, Artforum
Artforum
Artforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art.-Publication:The magazine is published ten times a year, September through May, along with an annual summer issue...

, Bookforum, Art in America, Parkett, Cabinet, Zone and others. Jones wrote numerous catalogs for other artists including Elizabeth Peyton,
Laurie Simmons, David Salle, Terry Winters, Richard Phillips, Carroll Dunham, and Keith Edmier.

In 1989 Jones was invited to join the faculty at the School of Art, Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 as Critic in Sculpture and ultimately was named Senior Critic.

1990s

In 1992 Jones served as the spokesman for the National Endowment of the Arts peer-review panel for fellowships in sculpture, which launched one of many high-profile national debates on censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...

 and First Amendment issues in the arts. Jones later served on a think-tank at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs
The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs is a professional public policy school at Princeton University. The school has granted undergraduate A.B. degrees since 1930 and graduate degrees since 1948...

 at Princeton University which considered the future of culture in the United States in light of a diminished National Endowment of the Arts.

In 1993 he had a solo exhibition at the Sonnabend Gallery in New York City. As his work continued to be exhibited internationally (including solo exhibitions in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

, Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, and Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

) Jones was commissioned to design garden projects including Pritzker Park in Chicago, the Rethymnon Centre of Contemporary Art in Crete, the Botanical Gardens in Curitiba, Brazil, Caesar’s Cosmic Garden Boras Konstmuseet, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 and a garden for the city of Hamburg, Germany among others.

In 1995, ArtForum magazine's "Best and Worst 1995" article stated that Jones should be "a nominee for a lifetime achievement award for contemporary-art awfulness."

In 1998 he was appointed professor and Chairman of the Visual Arts Department at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

. At Columbia he was the Director of the Digital Media Center and Co-Director of the Interactive Design Lab. While at Columbia he served on the faculty of the MA Colloquia in the Masters Program in Critical Studies, Department of Art History and Archeology and taught in seminars at The Computer Music Department. He continued to serve as a Visiting Professor at Konstfack
Konstfack
Konstfack or University College of Arts, Crafts and Design is a university college for higher education in the area of art, crafts and design in Stockholm, Sweden.- History :...

, University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, in Stockholm, Sweden, which he had done since 1996. He served on the Boards of Artists Space, the Public Art Fund
Public Art Fund
The Public Art Fund is a non-profit organization founded in 1977 by Doris Freedman , a Director of New York City's Department of Cultural Affairs, and the President of the Municipal Art Society. They have organized highly visible artists' projects, new commissions, installations and exhibitions in...

, and Franklin Furnace
Franklin Furnace
Franklin Furnace, also known as the Franklin Mine, is a famous mineral location for rare zinc, iron, manganese minerals in old mines in Franklin, New Jersey, USA. This locale produced more species of minerals and more different fluorescent minerals than any other location...

, all in New York City, the Princeton Sculpture Symposium, and was a Member of the Executive Committee of the Lucent Project, Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Academy of Music is a major performing arts venue in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, United States, known as a center for progressive and avant garde performance....

.

In 1999, Jones conceived of, and wrote the libretto for "Falling and Waving," the first computer generated opera produced by the Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Academy of Music
Brooklyn Academy of Music is a major performing arts venue in Brooklyn, a borough of New York City, United States, known as a center for progressive and avant garde performance....

 and Arts at Saint Ann's in New York City.

2000s

In 2001 he was appointed as the first Provost at Art Center College of Design where he guided the design and implementation of a new transdisciplinary curriculum for the College.

In 2002, he earned a Certificate from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

Presently Jones is Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm, Sweden where he leads The Experience Design
Experience design
Experience design is the practice of designing products, processes, services, events, and environments with a focus placed on the quality of the user experience and culturally relevant solutions, with less emphasis placed on increasing and improving functionality of the design...

 Group, with a mission "to persuade, stimulate, inform, envision, entertain, and forecast events, influencing meaning and modifying human behavior.” At Konstfack, Jones also co-directs WIRE, the MA program in curatorial practice and critical writing.
Jones is a Center Director at Konstfack for the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship (SSES), an interdisciplinary initiative by Karolinska Institutet, the Royal Institute of Technology, the Stockholm School of Economics, the Stockholm University and Konstfack.

Jones is a Guest Professor of Experience Design at NID
NID
Nid may refer to:* Nīþ, a social stigma implying the loss of honour in historical Germanic societyacronym NID* National Institute of Design, a design school in Ahmedabad, India...

, the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India. He has also served on the faculty of The Royal Danish Academy of Art, Copenhagen, The School of Visual Arts, New York, and Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Städelschule
Städelschule
Städelschule, Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, is a contemporary fine arts academy in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.- History :The Städelschule was established by a foundation set up by the Frankfurt merchant Johann Friedrich Städel in 1817...

 Frankfurt, Germany and as a visiting professor at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design
Bezalel Academy of Art and Design
Bezalel Academy of Art and Design is Israel's national school of art, founded in 1906 by Boris Schatz. It is named for the Biblical figure Bezalel, son of Uri , who was appointed by Moses to oversee the design and construction of the Tabernacle ....

, Israel's national school of art.
With his appointment at Konstfack as Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, he has been able, along with the faculty of The Experience Design Group, to create a graduate program especially designed to prepare students to become interdisciplinarians, or even transdisciplinarians. “Interdisciplinarity,” says Jones “is by now a stand-alone discipline, as much as the conventional disciplines of art, design or craft.”

Writing, Lectures, Collections

Jones writes regularly for Artforum
Artforum
Artforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art.-Publication:The magazine is published ten times a year, September through May, along with an annual summer issue...

and has a monthly column for Frieze
Frieze (magazine)
-Publication:frieze is published eight times a year and is based in London. As well as essays, exhibition reviews and columns by forward-thinking writers, artists, critics and curators, the magazine includes music reviews, artist projects, interviews and sections on design and...

.

He has delivered over two hundred lectures to universities, museums, art and design schools, including Harvard University, The Art Institute of Chicago, Yale University, The Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, The Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...

, The Guggenheim Museum, The Rhode Island School of Design, Parsons School of Design, DIA
Dia
Dia is free and open source general-purpose diagramming software, developed originally by Alexander Larsson. Dia uses a controlled single document interface similar to GIMP and Sodipodi.- Features :...

 Center for the Arts, New York City, Royal College of Art, London, Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts at MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, Brown University, Akademie Der Bildenden Künste, Vienna, the Architectural Association School of Architecture
Architectural Association School of Architecture
The Architectural Association School of Architecture, more usually known as the AA, is an architectural school in London, United Kingdom...

, London, among others.

His art is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...

, the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...

, the Guggenheim Museum
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...

, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles is a contemporary art museum with three locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near Walt Disney Concert Hall...

, and the Moderna Museet
Moderna Museet
Moderna museet, the Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm, Sweden, is a state museum located on the island of Skeppsholmen in central Stockholm, that was first opened in 1958. Its first manager was Pontus Hultén...

, Stockholm, among others.

External links

  • http://www.magasin3.com/exhibitions/jaar.html
  • http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/artistInfo/artist/14065
  • http://www.magasin3.com/images/exhibitions/jarr/jarr_citat.gif
  • http://www.jayscheib.com/falling/index.html
  • http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DEEDA153AF93AA1575AC0A96F948260
  • http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE2DB1539F934A15751C1A967958260
  • http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_7_39/ai_75761312
  • http://www.konstfack.se/konstfack/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=10&t=1&l=en
  • http://www.designingtime.se
  • http://www.villagevoice.com/art/0019,159644,14858,13.html
  • http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE2DD1030F937A2575BC0A964958260&scp=1&sq=ronald+jones+National+Endowment+of+the+Arts+&st=nyt)
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK