John Lennon described her as “the most famous unknown artist in the world: everyone knows her name, but no one knows what she does.” To escape the vagueness, Yoko Ono's work is the focus of a retrospective at the Tate Modern in London.
The exhibition entitled “Music of the Mind”, which opens on Thursday and runs until September 1, explores the creations of Yoko Ono, who turns 91 next Sunday and, above all, as the widow of the ex-Beatle, is an icon of the Concept art is known.
“This exhibition really celebrates the artist that Yoko was,” Andrew de Brun, one of the curators, tells AFP. “John Lennon made an important contribution to them, but we are delighted to be able to exhibit his art.”
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200 works
Over seven decades, the museum presents 200 works, installations, objects, videos, photos, sculptures and documents that look back on his performances and musical compositions.
The largest retrospective to date “pays tribute to the importance of Yoko Ono for contemporary art and culture,” emphasizes the curator.
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“We are pleased to be able to present his work to new generations of visitors,” “his activism, his campaigns for peace,” he adds.
Since her first exhibition in New York in the 1950s, Tokyo-born Yoko Ono has distinguished herself through conceptualism, a movement that believes the idea is more important than the work itself.
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The exhibition looks at some of her most controversial works, such as the video “Cut Piece,” which she presented in Japan and then at Carnegie Hall in New York.
She appears on stage in a black dress, leaves behind a pair of scissors and allows the audience to cut off her clothing to draw attention to the violence that society inflicts on women.
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The exhibition celebrates the journey of the artist who for decades was accused by some of being responsible for the breakup of the Beatles in 1970.
Meeting John Lennon
His installations at the Indica Gallery in London in 1967 fascinated John Lennon. For this occasion, a work called “Ceiling Painting” invited people to climb a ladder to look through a magnifying glass at the word “Yes” on the ceiling.
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Lennon climbed the ladder and was fascinated by the work, now on display in London.
“When Painting to Hammer a Nail was exhibited at the Indica Gallery, someone came up to me and asked me if he could hammer a nail. I said it would be fine if he gave me five shillings,” recalls Yoko Ono in her text Some Notes on the Lisson Gallery Show.
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“Instead of paying five shillings he asked if he could hammer in an imaginary nail. It was John Lennon.”
They married in 1969 and remained together until Lennon was murdered in New York in 1980, aged 40.
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During their 13 years together, the couple released six albums and created experimental music recordings, short films, performances and installations.
Together with Lennon, Yoko Ono achieved musical success, an aspect that was also covered in the exhibition.
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In 1980, the pair won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year with the album Double Fantasy, recorded before Lennon's death.
“When I listen to music, my body starts moving,” Yoko Ono said in a 2013 interview. “I am so. It's my body. It was like that even as a child.”