Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind at the Tate Modern delves into the legacy of the Japanese artist and activist. It covers seven decades of Ono’s art, from the 1950s to the present day, and unfolds in a loosely chronological fashion. The show follows in her footsteps from the experimental music and avant-garde art circles in the US, Japan and the UK in the 1960s.
Ono’s ‘instructions’ In 1962, Ono hung 38 sheets of paper featuring a set of instructions, written in calligraphic Japanese script, on a wall of the Sogetsu Art Centre in Tokyo. No artist had exhibited concepts for artworks as artworks themselves before, so the show, Instructions for Paintings, was the first exhibition of conceptual art. Ono elevated art to an intensely intellectual activity, and the concept of art above its physical form.
The Tate show suggests that Ono’s work is a form of “participatory art”, a kind of art that engages audiences in the creative process. But this is reductive. Ono saw her instructions as encapsulations of ideas, and ideas as stones “thrown into the water for ripples to be made”. Ono’s commitment to peace Her persistent commitment to world peace is expressed through her conception of art as a radical imaginary act.
How do you play an all-white chess set with an “opponent” , get undressed under a bag , or shake hands through a hole in a canvas with a “stranger”? This requires working in concert with the other and coming up with a new set of rules – initiating new social relations that lead to radically new modes of thought and action.