Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960-1971
May 17-September 7, 2015
She makes me happy. From the moment I walked into the 6th floor galleries at The Museum of Modern Art, a big grin appeared on my face. I was feeling a bit under the weather and the cure was Yoko Ono. A delicate electric charge infuses the poetic underpinnings of her work from the beautifully penned instructional notes challenging viewers to “do” things so they themselves become ”artists” - freshly aware of the world around them - the touch of others, their whispers; their relationship to the wind, experiencing the shining sun which eventually "melts into the sky" - before you are ordered to make a tunafish sandwich.
SNOW PIECE
Think that snow is falling
Think that snow is falling everywhere
all the time.
When you talk with a person, think
that snow is falling between you
and on the person.
Stop conversing when you think the
person is covered by snow.
1963 summer
Her prescriptions are remedies aiding in the attentiveness of one’s own breath, allowing you to feel the heart beating and listening to the rhythm of its murmurs. In Yoko Ono’s universe we live conjoined with nature - celebrating an individual's humanity, but always as inclusive beings brought together to live in peace on this planet.
The exhibition includes films which documented audience interaction with the artist - particularly the 1965 “Cut Piece”, her best-known performance work staged at Carnegie Hall. Yoko Ono was visually communicating the passive and acquiescent role of women. Visitors were prompted to come up on the platform - where the artist was sitting motionless - and cut away her clothes snip-by-snip, as she remained stationary, frozen, but not expressionless. I found this improvisation harrowing. Women often came up and with more discretion wielded the scissors with an attentive delicacy; on the other hand a few men pushed past psychological boundaries, attempting to inflict humiliation and in so doing proclaim mastery over her body. Ono’s face is seen communicating equanimity, confusion and disdain - her response being both revelatory and dramatic.
The intention of Film No. 4 1966-67 “ was to cover the screen with one object… something that was moving constantly…” Buttocks filled the screen, becoming the star of this approximately 80 minute 16 mm film which included 200 participants walking naked “in place while remaining centered in the camera shot.” Sometimes the genders were not immediately apparent as we focused on the myriad sizes and shapes of derrieres, the amount of body hair, and the way the gluteal muscles sidle up against one another in the process of rapid exercise.
The Fly filmed in 1970 is a 23:55 minute view of a fly’s slow exploration across a naked woman’s body. She is impassively lying on a bed, legs outstretched, while it explores every bit of her torso - a caressing lover fabricated out of hallucinatory dreams. There are close ups of the fly - one showing the wings flapping, taking a nip out of the model’s stomach, stretching the skin, while buzzing about on its erotic and infiltrating journey. The soundtrack features Yoko Ono singing - her insect like voice screeching along with John Lennon’s instrumentals adding another layer of vulnerability to the exposed form.
Flies are a medium that Ono had used in 1971 when she released them in MOMA’s Sculpture Garden; the flies soaring off into the galleries and then “radiating throughout the city…” Forty-four years later her exhibition is publicized through news and digital media - no longer having to hire a man with a sandwich board traipsing back and forth on 53rd Street promoting an imagined event.
Upon exiting the exhibition, I smiled again, delighted to have glanced over at the wall, catching a glimpse of Yoko Ono's never-ending dictums - this time expressly drafted provisions to the exhibition’s co-curators - Klaus Bisenbach and Christophe Cherix:
Time Piece to Klaus
Make a film of a day
To be viewed in 50 years time.
Y.O. 2015 April
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