Yoko Ono is a well known Japanese artist who is often recognized because she married a very famous musician - John Lennon. Ono was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1933 and generally worked in performance and conceptual art (Cunningham, 2021). Yoko Ono created many different types of art and they have been understood in many ways. She made installations, videos, performances and more. In this blog post I will look at a two pieces that were created by Yoko Ono and I will give my personal views on this artist.
I am going to start with a piece called 'Museum of modern [F]art' from 1971.
This piece looks like an advertisement for a show or a performance held by Ono on the given dates in MoMa. However, actually there were not any Ono's works in the museum at the time. It turned out that the entire piece is just the advertisement. This piece was completed when the people who did show up in the museum were asked how they liked Ono's show (Gotthardt, 2019). I think this piece is quite clever and tricky. It is a performance and the people who went to the museum were actually performing the show that Ono planned. I think it is genius. Also I like the playfulness of the letters on the advertisement. The woman carrying the letter F is positioned exactly between the words 'Modern' and 'art' so it the F is put in that space the word art changes into fart which is just funny. Personally I see this piece as a kind of a childish one, but it makes me amused, so I think it works well. I would call it childish not because of its silliness, but it is firstly like a prank to both the museum and the people who would want to see the show and also finding the word 'fart' funny is very child-like behavior. This is why I would call it childish, but in a very interesting way. I like playing with words and pranks pulled on people, I think it makes life a little bit funnier than it is, so I do actually really like this piece. I think it is light and harmless and I have nothing against it.
The next work I decided to look at, really got my attention because it it a piece that involves chess. Recently chess became a very popular game due to Scott Frank's mini series 'The Queen's Gambit'. The game of chess is a game for great minds that involves a lot of strategy and thinking. Ono in her piece painted all of the figures the same color and there are also all squares white. It is easy to imagine that this game easily becomes very confusing and the title of the piece 'play it by trust' really adds to that. In this game the game continues when people are able to remember where all of their pieces are and which are the pieces of the opponent. Chess is a war game and Ono's version is an intention for peace (Keats, 2014). I think calling for peace in a non-direct way is very interesting. At first I did not think about piece when looking at the game but now when I go deeper into the work, I can see it. There is no difference between the colors indicating that everyone is the same. This actually creates a great connection with the song 'Imagine' by Ono's husband John Lennon where he generally sings about world piece and how important it is. Ono was creating exactly when the hippie movement was at its peak and hippies were against the mainstream American life. They wanted world peace.
I am generally not too keen on performance art, however I like art that provokes me into thinking deeper about a subject. I like when I need to really think to get to its meaning and this is exactly how those two pieces made me feel. I am not going to say that Yoko Ono is my favorite artist, but definitely she is a great artist with a genius mind. I like to see how artists think and see their impact in the world. From looking at Ono's work I can easily see what were her goals and who she was not only as a person, but also as an artist. I find that very interesting because seeing how artist interprets themselves tells me a lot about who they are.
Reference List:
Cunningham, J. (2021) 'Yoko Ono', Encyclopedia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Yoko-Ono (Accessed: 07/06/2021).
Gotthardt, A. (2019) 'Yoko Ono’s 5 Most Iconic Works', Artsy. Available at: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-yoko-onos-5-iconic-works (Accessed: 07/06/2021).
Keats, J. (2014) 'Yes, Yoko Ono Is A Great Artist (Here's Why We Need Her Latest Show Now More Than Ever)', Forbes. 23 January. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathonkeats/2014/01/23/yes-yoko-ono-is-a-great-artist-and-we-need-her-latest-show-now-more-than-ever/ (Accessed: 07/06/2021).
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