The main collaborator in any work of art is the viewer, a fundamental point of Yoko Ono’s practice. We first encountered this idea outside the door of The Broad in Los Angeles, where “Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind” runs through October 11. There, from the branches of century-old Baroni olive trees, hang hundreds of white marks like fruit. On it are written the wishes of passers-by, completing their work, Wish Trees in Los Angeles (1996), where viewers are invited to be inspired by messages or add their own to uplift others.
“There are lines from the beginning where she asks us to look inward and find a sense of self, a sense of centering, and act from there with compassion toward others,” Sarah Lauer, the exhibition’s curator and director of exhibitions, tells the Observer about the show, which originated at Tate Modern in 2024, noting that Ono sees the artist’s role as one in transforming consciousness.
Most famous in many circles for being the wife of John Lennon, Ono had a noteworthy career as an artist long before she met him. A staple of the New York avant-garde scene since the mid-1950s, her Chambers Street loft was known for a series of concerts she organized with composer La Monte Young, attended by such luminaries as John Cage (with whom she toured Japan) and Isamu Noguchi. In 1961, her first major performance, at Carnegie Recital Hall, with Jung, Richard Maxfield, Jonas Mekas, Yvonne Rainer and others, preceded her first solo art show, “Paintings and Drawings by Yoko Ono,” at the AG Gallery owned by Fluxus mentor George Maciunas, an early champion of her work.
Cut a piece (1964), which premiered at Yamaichi Hall in Kyoto, was a major breakthrough and remains her most flexible work. In it, she sat on stage next to a pair of scissors while the audience was invited to cut pieces of her clothing. “It was a form of give and take,” she said of the work that would be done with him. A piece of heaven for Jesus Christ“, at MPA’s REDCAT in Los Angeles on July 18 and 19. “It was a kind of criticism against artists, who always present what they want to present. I wanted people to take what they wanted, so it was very important to say that you can cut where you want.”
“Cut a piece “It has been interpreted in a wide range of ways, often through aspects of identity — race, gender and sexuality, as well as nationality,” Lauer says, noting that Ono made it back in 2003 at the age of 70, as a comment on ageism. “I first performed it in the major postwar period, so it was read in relation to the traumas and effects of World War II or the Vietnam War.”
In the first gallery at The Broad Lighting piecea black-and-white short film based on Ono’s 1964 book Grapefruita collection of 200 avant-garde “educational objects,” which says “Light a match and watch until it goes out.” Her practice is mainly divided between performance pieces e.g Cut a piece, Packaging piece and Shadow piecethe opposite works like White chess set (Also known as Play it with confidence) (1966), a chess set without black pieces, denies the concept of war and conflict and promotes cooperation between the two sides. Smile box (1967), a small sterling silver box with a mirror at the bottom, is associated with an unrealized film intended to capture the smiling face of almost every person on the globe so that world leaders could see those who would be affected by declarations of war.
Other pieces straddle both sides of their practice, e.g Oak piece (1968), when Ono and Lennon planted two oaks (one facing east, one facing west) in Coventry Cathedral in England. Expanding on the concept a year later, they mailed boxes containing the walnuts to 96 prominent world leaders and asked them to plant trees. It was briefly banned by the British Board of Film Censors Movie No. 4 (often referred to as “Bottoms”) (1967) is an 80-minute black-and-white piece consisting entirely of close-ups of human backgrounds. “It would be very helpful if people started taking their pants off before fighting – that’s the kind of destruction I’m interested in,” Ono said at the Destruction in Art symposium in London in 1966, sponsored by the avant-garde teacher Gustav Metzger.
It was a pivotal time and place for her as she presented “Paintings and Unfinished Objects” at Indica Gallery, where Maciunas provided her with mechanical designs and crucial support. This is where she first met John Lennon, who asked her to drive a nail into her piece of art, Painting for nail hammer. She initially refused because the exhibition had not yet officially opened, but after some persuasion, she agreed to let him do so for five shillings. “Well, I’ll give you five imaginary shillings and drive an imaginary nail into it,” Lennon replied. At the same show, he climbed the stairs of her piece Ceiling paintalso on The Broad, and looked through a magnifying glass on a chain to read the word “YES” printed in tiny letters on the ceiling.
The collaboration between the two was mainly in the field of protest and music. The first of them, Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Maidenswas released with a nude photo of the couple on its cover and was sold in a brown paperback. Recorded at Lennon’s home studio while his wife at the time, Cynthia, was holidaying in Greece, it marked the end of his first marriage when she returned home to find Ono wearing her bathrobe and was greeted by her husband with the words, “Oh, hello.”
Revolution 9on The Beatles’ White Album, was largely a collaboration between Lennon and Ono, along with George Harrison. Although contractually credited to Lennon-McCartney, McCartney was upset by the song’s inclusion on the album. Many fans view Ono as the reason the band broke up after Lennon insisted on bringing a bed to Abbey Road Studios so she could provide input after she was immobilized during a car accident. But experts confirm that the band was on its way to disintegration despite Ono’s presence.
“It was like a person in prison without doing anything wrong,” she said at the time. “I finally came to the conclusion that I should use the great energy of hate that was coming to me and turn it into love.”
“Together they really focused on humanitarian efforts and peace during the Vietnam War,” Lauer says of the “couple sleepover” after their 1969 wedding, a two-week peaceful anti-war protest in hotels in Amsterdam and Montreal where the press was invited into their bedroom. While in Montreal, they recorded “Give Peace a Chance”, the anthem adopted by Vietnam War demonstrators, followed by their “War’s Over If You Want It” campaign, which was disseminated through advertising and media in 12 cities globally, and repeated throughout Los Angeles in conjunction with the broadside.
Ono’s musical output was also prolific in the late 1960s and early 1970s, recording as a solo artist and with Lennon in the Plastic Ono Band. In addition to hits like “Sisters, Oh Sisters” and “Women Power,” her career continued long after Lennon’s death in 1980 with 16 solo albums to date.
At 93 years old, there’s no guarantee whether or not there will be a 17th gala, but to coincide with the wide screening, a workshop will be held on September 19 for a new musical, I’m YokoIt was co-produced by Yuka Honda of the band Seibu Mato and artist Glenn Kaino. They will be accompanied by singers Theo Blakeman, Ono’s granddaughter Amy Helfrich and cellist Maggie Parkins.
“Peace is the most difficult and complex state that humanity can achieve, because we live among an enormous number of people with whom we cannot agree,” Honda, a long-time friend of Ono, said in an Instagram post reflecting on the artist’s career. “The challenge becomes unbearable when it comes to power. However, I hope we do not take our eyes off this goal.”
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