We are delighted to present “Snakes and Butterflies,” a special project by the extraordinary and visionary American artist Joan Jonas.
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), were inspired by the writings of the German art historian Aby Warburg. 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 Joan Jonas had witnessed in a Hopi pueblo during her trip to Arizona in the 1960s and was deeply influenced by it. The reproduced and enlarged drawings, printed with pigment on handmade paper, are the plates enclosed in a special numbered and signed portfolio, published by Noire.