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.

Artwork by Jennie C. Jones
Texts by Grace Deveney and Evelyn C. Hankins

Edited by Nick Larsen

Designed by David Chickey

Published by Radius Books, 2024

Hardcover, 224 pages, 80 images, 9.5 × 12 inches

ISBN: 978-1-95-516107-7