FormLAB (1997-present)

Multimedia artist Les Joynes (b 1963 Santa Barbara, California) created FormLAB in London in 1997. Installed in museums, galleries and other public spaces, FormLAB engages artists across cultures in creating collaborations that share knowledge and build mutual understanding. FormLAB has exhibited in museums, galleries and public spaces in Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, China, India and France and now prepares projects for Taiwan, Bhutan and Sri Lanka.

As an outgrowth of Joynes’s research on geographically dispersed practice, FormLAB draws inspiration from Andre Breton’s exploration of engaging chance in artmaking. Joynes brings these explorations into shared spaces, experimental procedures, storytelling and dialogues across borders where artists invent new methodologies of production.

About the artist: Born in California and sharing his time between Asia, Europe and the Americas since 1983 Joynes’s work is deeply rooted in exploring cultural identities, historical narratives, and the impact of place on human experience. Using a bundle of media practices including photography, sculpture, painting, performance and moving image, Joynes transforms the studio where the public can experience these investigations as they explore materials, body movements, shared spaces.

He is recipient of the Japan Ministry of Culture/ MeXT Scholarship, the Taiwan Ministry of Education Scholarship, Fulbright US Public Diplomacy Awards for China and Mongolia and is US ZERO1 Art and Technology/American Arts Incubator Artist. He serves as a selector for Japan Contemporaries. He served on the curatorial team that produced the 1998 Taipei Biennial at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in Taiwan and has curated and produced exhibitions in Tokyo, London and New Delhi.

He has published in Art in America;Art Monthly London, Journal for Artistic Research (JAR); University of Indiana Press; Chithravathi (Magazine); India, Serbia Museum of Contemporary Art [catalogue]; Long Museum, Shanghai; in Going Beyond: Art as Adventure, Newcastle; Anywhere v.1. University of Melbourne; LeRoy Neiman Foundation; Octopus, Journal for Visual Culture. University of California Irvine and Springer, Vienna.

Joynes holds a BA (Hons) Fine Art from Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, BA (cum laude) History from Boston University, MA Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London, and MA Fine Art from Musashino Art University in Tokyo. Joynes furthered his research in cross-cultural collaboration during his PhD from the Faculty of Art, Environment, and Technology at Leeds Metropolitan University in the UK and Postdoctorate at the University of São Paulo in Brazil. His work is in private and public collections in Asia, Europe and the Americas. Joynes is represented by Gallery Thomas Jaeckel in New York.

Joynes’s work has featured at the National Museum of Taiwanese Literature (2023), ByWoods Gallery, Kaohsiung, Taiwan (2023), Douba Film Festival, China (2019), Inside Out Art Museum, Beijing (2017), Museum of Brazilian Arts (MAB-FAAP), Sao Paulo, Brazil (2015), Zanabazar Museum of Fine Art, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (2014), 976 Gallery, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Launch for Venice Biennale (2014), Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado, São Paulo (2013), Brazilian Museum of Sculpture, São Paulo (2012), Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture, Korea (2012), Fenberger House Museum, Nagano, Japan (2012), Gallery Thomas Jaeckel, New York (2011), Welsh Museum of Modern Art, UK (2010), Treignac Projet, France (2010), Bauhaus Foundation, Dessau, Berlin and Queenstown, Singapore (2009), Åmotgård Museum, Bygstad, Norway (2008), Michael Steinberg Fine Art, New York (2008), New General Catalog, New York (2007), CBGB New York (2006), Space, London (2005), Romo Gallery, Atlanta (2005), Mizuma Gallery Tokyo (2005), Bergstübl Mitte, Berlin (2004), Mars, Tokyo (2003), Tactical Museum/ AIT, Tokyo (2002), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney (2001), Nylon, London (2000), Asahi Contemporary Art 2000, Tokyo (2000), Bangkok Experimental Film Festival, Bangkok (1999), Tatsumi Orimoto Space, Kawasaki, Japan (1999), Casa, Tokyo (1998), Norimatsu Museum, Japan (1997), Milch, London (1996), Barbican, London (1995).