Joseph Ravens Rabensdorf

Joseph Ravens (b. 1968, USA) is an artist, curator, educator, and designer working in performance, conceptual, and time-based practices. Ravens received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theater from the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater, studied audiovisual arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, and earned a Master of Fine Arts in performance from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Ravens’s practice focuses on highly stylized, time-based performance works that merge abstract imagery with conceptual action. Approaching performance through a sculptural lens, Ravens investigates time, the body, space, and materiality, frequently employing wearable or interactive objects to reinvent or disrupt anatomical form. Drawing on strategies of seduction, expectation, surprise, and illusion, these works challenge perception and reference materialism, conformity, alienation, and the search for meaning within a complex and often overwhelming world. Animal and insect behaviors, with their instinctive yet highly structured forms of intelligence, serve as recurring points of inspiration, while site-specificity and nontraditional venues shape performances staged in locations ranging from streets and school buses to rooftops, barns, and catacombs.

A two-time recipient of the Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, Ravens has received numerous grants and awards supporting an international practice across North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Additional honors include two Illinois Governor’s International Exchange Grants, a Tanne Foundation Curatorial Award, multiple grants from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE), and recognition as a Newcity Breakout Artist (2012) and a Newcity Stage Top 50 Player (2018).

Selected exhibitions and performances include Rencontre internationale d’art performance (RiAP), Le Lieu (Québec City, Canada); Art in Odd Places: Voice (West Hollywood, California); Mental Turbulence, Yö Galleria (Helsinki, Finland); Perneo Encuentro Internacional de Performance Art (Madrid, Spain); Tempting Failure (London, United Kingdom); 7a*11d (Toronto, Canada); Bienal DEFORMES (Santiago, Chile); the 20th Bienal Internacional de Curitiba (Brazil); Venice International Performance Art Week (Italy); and Intrude: Art and Life 366 at the Zendai Museum (Shanghai), among many others.

Ravens has been a visiting artist and lecturer at numerous art schools, universities, and cultural institutions worldwide, including the Stamps School of Art and Design at the University of Michigan; the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna; Montserrat College of Art; the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University; Babeș-Bolyai University (Cluj-Napoca, Romania); and, in Chicago, Columbia College, Loyola University Chicago, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

In parallel with performance and curatorial practices, Ravens works as an independent designer in the photo and film industries. Ravens served as production designer for Desire Lines, winner of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival NEXT Special Jury Award, and has contributed to numerous experimental films and large-scale commercial projects.

Ravens is the founder and director of Defibrillator Performance Art Gallery (DFBRL8R); co-founder and former director of the Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival (2012–2017); an auxiliary board member of Grace Exhibition Space (NYC); and a lecturer in the Performance Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. More information is available at www.josephravens.com.