Capturing Scholarship and Datasets in Contemporary Art: the Joan Jonas Knowledge Base

The Joan Jonas Knowledge Base is a digital resource containing information for art historians, curators, conservators, archivists, and other researchers about the visionary work of the American multimedia and performance artist Joan Jonas. The JJKB is a project of the Artist Archives Initiative, an interdisciplinary research effort dedicated to creating and developing open access information resources for curating, conserving, and researching the work of contemporary artists. The motivation behind the initiative is the growing need for searchable, digital resources built with more flexibility to support discoverability than traditional highly structured databases on topics in contemporary art. In addition to developing models for artist-specific information resources, the initiative aims to stimulate discussion on topics related to the future of today’s art, including authenticity, authorship, and artwork integrity. The first project of the Artist Archives Initiative was the David Wojnarowicz Knowledge Base. This presentation will discuss the particular challenges that Jonas’ installations and performances pose for software selection and design with a focus on the role of linked open data in cultural heritage research. In addition to interviews, photographs, notebook scans, and biographical information about the artist and people she has worked with, the resource features studies on important exhibitions and two key early works, Organic Honey (1972/73) and Mirage (1976/2004/2008). This research asks how the JJKB can provide researchers with the artist’s point of view as well as the history of her works as they transitioned from performance to video and multimedia installations.