The primary participant in any work of art is the viewer, a fundamental point in Yoko Ono's work. We first encounter this idea just outside the door of The Broad in LA, where “Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind” runs on Oct. 11. There, from the limbs of century-old Barouni olive trees, hundreds of white tags hang like fruit. In them are written the wishes of those who passed, completing his work, Wish Tree (1996), where viewers are invited to find inspiration in the messages or add their own to uplift others.
“There are lines from the beginning where he asks us to look inside and find a sense of self-love, a sense of focus, and act there with compassion for others,” Broad curator and exhibitions manager Sarah Loyer tells the Observer of the exhibition, which was established at Tate Modern in 2024, noting that Ono sees the artist's role as part of awareness.
Most famous in many circles for being John Lennon's wife, Ono had a remarkable career as an artist long before she met him. A fixture on the New York scene since the mid-1950s, his residence on Chambers Street is known for a series of concerts with composer La Monte Young, attended by such luminaries as John Cage (who has toured Japan) and Isamu Noguchi. In 1961, his first major performance, at the Carnegie Recital Hall, attended by Young, Richard Maxfield, Jonas Mekas, Yvonne Rainer and others, preceded his first solo art exhibition, “Paintings & Drawings by Yoko Ono,” at the AG Gallery hosted by Fluxus guru George Maciunas, an early hero of his career.
Cut a Piece (1964), which premiered at Kyoto's Yamaichi Hall, was a huge success and remains his strongest piece. In it, she was sitting on stage next to a pair of scissors while the audience was invited to cut pieces of her clothing. “It was kind of give, give and take,” he said of the assignment as well Sky Piece in Jesus Christat LA's REDCAT artist MPA July 18 and 19. “It was a kind of criticism of musicians who always give what they want to give.
“Cut a Piece it has been interpreted in many different ways, often in terms of identity—race, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity,” Loyer said, noting that Ono performed it again in 2003 at age 70, commenting on aging.
In the first gallery at The Broad is Bright Pieceis a black-and-white short film that takes cues from Ono's 1964 novel Grapefruitan avant-garde collection of 200 “instructions” to “light a match and watch it go out.” His practice is mainly divided between pieces of work such as Cut a Piece, Wrapping a Piece again Piece of Shadowthe opposite works as White Chess Set (also known as Play it with Confidence) (1966), a chess game with no black pieces, ignores the concept of war and conflict and encourages cooperation between the two sides. The Smile Box (1967), a small shiny silver box with a mirror on the bottom, relates to a never-before-seen film intended to capture the smiling faces of nearly everyone in the world so that world leaders can see those who will be affected by declarations of war.
Some pieces go on both sides of his routine, such as An episode of Acorn (1968), when Ono and Lennon planted two acorns (one facing East, one facing West) at Coventry Cathedral in England. Extending this idea a year later, they sent boxes of acorns to 96 prominent world leaders, asking them to plant trees. He was briefly banned by the British Board of Film Censors, he Movie No. 4 (often referred to as “Bottoms”) (1967) is an 80-minute black-and-white piece consisting entirely of close-ups of a person's rear. “It would be very helpful if people started taking their pants off before they fight—that's the kind of destruction I'm interested in,” Ono said at the London DIAS (Destruction in Art Symposium), sponsored by avant-garde guru Gustav Metzger.
It was an important time and place for him to present “Unfinished Paintings and Objects” at the Indica Gallery, where Maciunas provided mechanical designs and essential support. It was there that he first met John Lennon, who asked to put a nail in his piece, Nail Drawing. At first he refused because the exhibition had not yet officially opened, but after some coaxing, he agreed to let him do it for five shillings. Lennon replied, “Well, I'll give you five imaginary shillings and drive in an imaginary nail.” In the same show, he climbed the ladder for his episode Roof Paintingand at The Broad, and peered through a magnifying glass suspended from a chain to read the word “Yes” written in small letters on the ceiling.
The collaboration between the two was mainly about protest and music. First of all, Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Maidensit was released with a picture of a nude couple on its cover and was sold in a brown paper sleeve. Recorded in Lennon's home studio while his then-wife, Cynthia, was visiting Greece, it marked the end of his first marriage when he returned home to find Ono in his bathrobe and was greeted by her husband with the words, “Oh, hello.”
Revolution 9on the Beatles' White Album, especially the collaboration between Lennon and Ono, and George Harrison. Although it is said that according to the Lennon-McCartney contract, McCartney was upset that the song was included on the album. Ono is seen by many fans as the cause of the group's split after Lennon insisted that a bed be brought to the Abbey Road studios for input after it malfunctioned during a car accident. But experts maintain the band is headed for disbandment despite Ono's presence.
“It was like a prisoner who did nothing wrong,” he said at the time. “In the end I came to the conclusion of using that great power of hatred that was coming to me and turned it into love.”
“Together, they really focused on humanitarianism and peace efforts during the Vietnam War,” Loyer said of the pair's 'sleep in bed' after their 1969 wedding, a two-week nonviolent anti-war protest at hotels in Amsterdam and Montreal where the media were invited to their rooms. While in Montreal, they recorded the song “Give Peace a Chance,” a song adopted by Vietnam War protesters, followed by their campaign War Is Over If You Want It, broadcast by advertising and media in 12 cities around the world, and repeated in LA in conjunction with The Broad show.
Ono's music flourished again in the late 1960s and early 1970s, recording as a soloist with Lennon in the Plastic Ono Band. In addition to songs like “Sisters, Oh Sisters” and “Women Power,” her career continued long after Lennon's death in 1980 with 16 solo albums to date.
In 93 years, there is no word on whether there will be a 17th event or not, but accompanying the Broad exhibition is a September 19 workshop on new music, I am Yokoproduced by Yuka Honda of the band Cibo Matto and singer Glenn Kaino. They will be accompanied by musicians Theo Bleckmann, Ono's granddaughter Emi Helfrich and cellist Maggie Parkins.
“Peace is a very difficult and complicated state for mankind to achieve, as we live among a large number of people with whom we cannot agree,” said Honda, who is Ono's friend for a long time, in an Instagram post showing the artist's work. “The challenge becomes unbearable when it is forced. However, I hope that we will not take our eyes off this goal.”
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