Advertisement
Grapefruit, Ono's 1964 book of 150 brief and humorous instructions, also features prominently in the show. Last Sunday morning at the museum, beginning at 4:30 AM, Ono made good on the Grapefruit instruction that reads, "Break a contemporary museum into pieces with the means you have chosen. Collect the pieces and put it together with glue" by staging Morning Peace 2015. The performance was a re-envisioning of her 1965 piece of the same name. Acting as both the hammer and the glue, musician Blood Orange and DJ Virgil Abloh performed until the early dawn as Ono and nearly 1,000 revelers danced in the garden lobby and on top of the MoMA couches and speakers in the early-morning sun.Read over on i-D: Yoko Ono Is One Woman Who Loves All Women
Advertisement
Yoko Ono: An elaborate joke? My sense of humor you probably saw in many of my art instructions. When a woman artist makes a work with sense of humor, the world asks exactly like what you are asking now. "Why is it important to stage that kind of show?" Seriously, give us women artists a chance!Your MoMA show focuses on the decade before your first go at MoMA. What was that period like for you creatively?
I was totally creative and had fun being a woman artist and making art, exhibiting and performing in New York City, Japan, and London. The spoilsport male artists were so angry they decided to bury me by saying they didn't think I was an artist.
I liked making art that existed only conceptually. But there was another reason: When the works were not conceptual, they all walked out on me.
When I performed Cut Piece, the people were so shocked they did not talk about it. It's a different time now. It will be talked about, but may be more dangerous to perform.
Advertisement
I was totally scared that I might, by mistake, cut her skin or something. Now I know that the work is not only scary to the one whose clothes are being cut.
More to do with my hubby's popularity and fame, which was unlike my unpopularity and fame at the time. But the ideas are what all people want. Sometimes they are too afraid to change their lives to live in peace and harmony instead of violence and conflict.
The time when the sun rises. It is symbolic of all the days of renewal. June 21 is also the summer solstice all over the world.Fifty years later, what's the biggest difference between your first solo show at MoMA and now?
It's nice and noisy now.Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960–1971 is on view at MoMA through September 7, 2015.Follow Antwaun on Twitter.