Yoko Ono: Lumière de l’aube
In 1971 Yoko Ono placed an advert in the New York Times announcing her exhibition, a one-woman show, at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). In her catalogue for the show, she was depicted standing in-front of MoMA, its logo prominent in the foreground, but just before the “A” there was a drop in the sign causing one to look down to see Ono standing, holding a bag with the letter “F” on it. The Museum of Modern Fart was the not-so-accidental title of this fake exhibition that was supposedly based on a jar of flies released in the air by Ono, their journey documented by a photographer. When visitors arrived at MoMA, however, they would see the advert taped to the ticket window, underneath reading in Ono’s handwriting, “this is not here.”
Moving to New York City in 1953, Ono established a relationship with gallery owner George Maciunas of Fluxus, where Ono later held her first solo exhibition. Only five people attended, including John Cage. Although the trial, tribulations and controversies that surrounded Ono after she married John Lennon, Ono relentlessly pursued her creativity.
Her art can mostly be described as avant-garde, spanning over mediums including paper, installations, performance, audio and film. Her piece Painting To Be Stepped On (1960-1961) sees a canvas coloured with water paints and acrylic, lain on the floor, viewers invited to – as the name suggests – step on it. This comes from her instructional art book, Grapefruit (1964) where the concept is explained simply:
PAINTING TO BE STEPPED ON
Leave a piece of canvas or finished painting on the floor or in the street.
1960 Winter
With these instructions, her art – in general – can therefore exist everywhere.
Bag Piece (1964) is another interactive piece where visitors are invited to step inside a black bag and do what they will. For some, perhaps this piece offers a moment to revel in the work of the avant-garde enthusiast and a chance to experience the creative process of Ono. For others, perhaps an opportunity for them to engage in performance art, entering from one perspective (Ono’s) but the longer time that is spent in the bag, the more time they have to develop their own purpose for being in the bag.
Throughout Ono’s career, it seemed that the main descriptor that she was frequently associated with was ‘John Lennon’s wife’. The two were renowned for their collaborations through music, performance art and peace campaigning. Their famous bed-in saw them protest within their hotel room in Amsterdam, inviting the press in an aim to share their anti-war sentiments. Ono’s and Lennon’s posters, WAR IS OVER – (If You Want It) added yet another dimension to the couple’s activism. “…what we’re trying to promote is an awareness in people of how much power they have, and not to rely on the government, or leaders, or teachers so much that they’re all passive or automatons,” said Lennon in 1969. In 2015 Ono was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award in the Observer Ethical Awards for her activism spanning over half a century.
“People’s reactions to my work aren’t necessarily important—it’s fine if they have different opinions. If their response is good, then I feel good, but what I create has to do more with myself. When I express myself, I feel free,” wrote Ono in her book An Invisible Flower. But Ono has paved her own road now, a number of retrospectives are being held all over the world. From New York to Mexico, and now for the first time in France at Museé d’art contemporain de Lyon (MAC Lyon), visitors will have the opportunity to view and experience Ono’s work throughout her career. Yoko Ono: Lumière de l’aube, promises to be another exciting instalment for Ono’s memorable and unique works spanning 3,000m2 of artworks to see, hear and interact with from 1952 to 2016.
Ono’s perspective is unique, her ideas are wired differently, and her pieces are difficult to fathom, but in such a retrospective exhibition visitors can venture a little bit closer to really understanding the magic behind Ono. We spoke with Thierry Raspail the Co-Curator of Yoko Ono: Lumière de l’aube at macLYON about the environment and unique experience that is set to form the basis of the exhibition.
fluoro. How did you create an environment that would allow Yoko Ono’s work to connect with visitors?
Thierry Raspail. These days, Yoko Ono’s work is essential viewing. It is utterly relevant, though not widely enough recognised, for my taste, in its very sensitive ability to reflect our times. That is one of the reasons for this retrospective.
I have been keen, however, for us to present an exhibition that is totally faithful to the work and in harmony with the principle of the instructions, and that respects its “spirit”. And so, because Yoko’s work contains time within itself, this retrospective does not operate in chronological order, even though the dialogue opens with Instruction for Paintings. And, because the visual art contains sound, or vice versa, Yoko’s music has not been in any way “isolated” in the exhibition space in order for it to be heard. On the contrary, it radiates from all the walls. And Yoko Ono has generously agreed to make her own playlist – which should be looked on, or rather listened to, as just so many instructions.
f. What were the parameters that you needed to adhere to when curating this exhibition?
TR. For Yoko Ono the original, in its generally accepted sense, is no longer an original but rather a beginning, an “instruction” – that is to say the diagram of a story to be experienced –, we have given preference to versions of the works that can be produced by a wide public. Actually, “version” is not really the right word because it is not a matter of versions in the academic sense, like for example, versions of the Descent from the Cross of a landscape. Nor is it a matter of colored variations, like the variations in Monet’s Rouen Cathedral series. And it is certainly not like a series of Elvis Presley’s. It is a matter of successive actualisations in time, which take on distinct forms in different contexts and are the plural modes of existence of a story in progress. I use the word “version” as a default, and I do not use the word interpretations, which might be apt for “others” (i.e. for us when we perform the instructions), but it is not at all the right word for a piece realized/performed by the artist herself. The fact that the work is do-able, i.e. that it is the subject of an experiment and not just verbal or visual, is the lesson Yoko Ono teaches us, a lesson in experimentation and sharing.
f. What do you hope visitors to the exhibition will take away with them from the experience?
TR. Works from 1952 to 2016 take over 3000 m2, mainly exhibiting great interactive installations, and the exhibition is made as a unique and never seen before project.
Visitors to the exhibition are confronted by Half a (bourgeois) Room (now, inevitably, also evoking the bloody events of 13 November in France) and a maximally extended and resolutely optimistic Play It by Trust. Among other works, they discover a Yes Painting that one climbs onto and a Kitchen Piece performed by ten chefs who each create a “soup” for the occasion or Freight Train, a railway truck dedicated to what history has forgotten – a direful, yet sublime and magnificent response to the contagious waves of neo-fascism sweeping across Europe and breaking over France.
For Lyon’s retrospective, Yoko Ono has chosen a beautiful title in Lumière de L’aube. It is generic, in so far as “Lumière” is one of the keywords of her oeuvre. At the same time, the word is rooted in the city’s history because it inevitably recalls the Lumière Brothers, and it’s a beautiful beginning.
f. Why do you feel Ono is such an important artist of our time?
TR. In a little less than seven years, from 26 October 1955 to 25 May 1962, between New York and Tokyo, Yoko Ono broadened the ambit of the visual arts to cover hitherto unexplored areas. By pushing the physical quality of art to the point of invisibility, to a mere shout, by using the body, by identifying with the present and the incomplete, and by inviting all and sundry to join in and create or interpret her scores, she was effectively writing a new page in the history of art.
It all began with a few sentences in a student newspaper. And the story continued in a loft, on a stage, in a theatre, called itself a concert, was performed in several versions with the text reshaped and recomposed, then with sounds overlaid and pre-recorded, with Yoko sharing out the roles, the functions and interpretations among artists, musicians and choreographers, and leaving it up to anyone who wanted to to continue the work wherever they liked, or leaving it as a text even when the work was (as it might also be) a painting. What she was doing was poetry, performance, events, sound, music, conceptual art, painting.
f. What were the most rewarding aspects of having Ono’s work available for view at macLYON?
TR. What she did decades ago is exactly what many artists do today. What is important for us is to exhibit simultaneously all the facets of her work at macLYON. It is clear that Yoko Ono considers that her oeuvre is expressly designed to be definitively uncompleted, to be capable of being performed by anyone and of being re-worked over time, and re-performed on any occasion. And it follows that, since they can be performed anywhere and at any time, her works have little need of the support of a museum or gallery.
From 1955 to 1962 (over the of 6 years and 8 months), almost by sleight of hand, Yoko Ono brought about a veritable Copernican revolution. Her ideas of text and text-score, instructions, sound, stage, collectives and multiple versions opened incredible vistas for her, which she would go on to broaden and develop in her subsequent works. The best of contemporary art in 2015 bears the distinctive stigmata of her influence.
Yoko Ono: Lumière de l’aube will show at Museé d’art contemporain de Lyon in France, from Wednesday 9 March – Sunday 10 July 2016.
