Ted Joans

Ted Joans
Born
Theodore Jones

July 4, 1928
Cairo, Illinois, U.S.
DiedApril 25, 2003(2003-04-25) (aged 74)
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
NationalityAmerican
EducationIndiana University
Occupations
  • Jazz poet
  • surrealist
  • trumpeter
  • painter
Known forBohemianism
Notable workLong Distance Exquisite Corpse (1976-2003)
AwardsAmerican Book Awards Lifetime Achievement Award (2001)Before Columbus Foundation

Theodore Joans (July 4, 1928 – April 25, 2003) was an American beatnik, surrealist,[1] painter, filmmaker, collageist,[2] jazz poet and jazz trumpeter who spent long periods of time in Paris[3] while also traveling through Africa. His complex body of work stands at the intersection of several avant-garde artistic streams. He was the author of more than 30 books of poetry, prose, and collage; among them Black Pow-Wow, Beat Funky Jazz Poems, Afrodisia, Jazz is Our Religion, Double Trouble, WOW and Teducation. In 2001 he was the recipient of Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Awards Lifetime Achievement Award.

In visual art, Joans is best known for creating a more than 30-foot-long chain of drawings and collages on dot matrix printer computer paper called Long Distance Exquisite Corpse (1976-2003), an extended exquisite corpse of 132 invited contributors, including Paul Bowles, Breyten Breytenbach, William S. Burroughs, Mário Cesariny, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Bruce Conner, Laura Corsiglia, Bill Dixon, Allen Ginsberg, David Hammons, Stanley William Hayter, Dick Higgins, Konrad Klapheck, Alison Knowles, Michel Leiris, Malangatana, Roberto Matta, Octavio Paz, Larry Rivers, James Rosenquist, Wole Soyinka, Dorothea Tanning and Cecil Taylor.[4]

Joans's motto was: "Jazz is my religion and Surrealism my point of view".

  1. ^ [1] Jonathon Keats, "An Eye-Opening Met Exhibit Shows The Full Gamut Of Surrealist Art From Asia To Africa To North And South America"], Forbes, October 30, 2021
  2. ^ [2] Surrealism at The Tate
  3. ^ [3] Remembering Ted Joans: Black Beat Surrealist by Justin Desmangles
  4. ^ [4] David Hammons’s Ted Joans: Exquisite Corpse by Bruno Marchand