Harper's BAZAAR Australia, November 2013
Lady Gaga cites her as an inspiration, as do Jeff Koons,
Sam Taylor-Wood, Karl Lagerfeld and Kenzo’s creative directors, Humberto Leon and Carol Lim. Four decades on from her famous “Bed-In” with late husband John Lennon, artist, musician and activist Yoko Ono’s influence has never been greater. Petite and birdlike in appearance but enormous in presence, the 80-year-old grandmother of conceptual art (who could easily pass for 50) is still working, creating and belting out primal screams in gallery spaces. She is active on social media, and continues to collaborate with other artists and musicians.Will she ever give it all up to join a Bingo circle? Probably not, but she may create a piece around one.“Art is like breathing for me. If I don’t do it, I start to choke,” she has said, crediting her work as her fountain of youth, and I challenge anyone to find an argument against that.
Right now, the spirit of Ono’s conceptual practice is bang-on the pop-culture zeitgeist. In the past few months alone we’ve seen Jay-Z lip-synching Picasso Baby for six hours straight alongside Marina “The Artist is Present” Abramovic, Lady Gaga begging for applause with an avant-garde, reference-heavy new album titled Art Pop, James Franco peddling his ideas of conceptual art left, right and centre, and Miley Cyrus “twerking” at the MTV Video Music Awards (surely that was a form of performance art?). And you cannot overlook Ono’s passionate women’s rights message, another hot media topic.
This month Ono’s first solo Australian show arrives at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA). Brilliantly co- curated by Ono and MCA chief curator Rachel Kent, it spans her life’s work and includes some of her best-known installations, such as Wish Tree for Sydney, where the audience is invited to scribble down their wishes and hang them on the branches of a native tree; Telephone in Amaze, where viewers walk through a mazelike structure to find a telephone that Ono will call periodically; and Mend Piece, where the audience is invited to sit at a communal table and repair broken china. Other works explore loss, conflict, humanity and, of course, a yearning for world peace. Ono will also appear at two public events: in conversation with Kent at Sydney Opera House, and on an MCA panel discussing the future of music.
For more than 50 years now Ono has been spreading her message of love and peace, yet her most fascinating achievements are not what she creates but the clear passion and positivity behind the pieces. She has experienced war firsthand, witnessed her husband’s assassination and had more unjust hatred flung at her than any other artist working today, but she has never compromised her art, even when it has been misunderstood and labelled inane. And of course, despite Paul McCartney publicly defending her, she continues to suffer the knee- jerk reactions of Beatles fans everywhere. Incredibly, she manages to up-cycle that hatred into a message of hope.“I turned that negative energy into a positive energy. One of the reasons I’m healthy now is because I went through all of that,” she said recently. She is an inspiring woman, to say the least, and more than deserving of her icon status.“This exhibition reaffirms Ono’s belief in the power of human agency — specifically, people’s ability to dream and work towards a better future together,” says Kent of the MCA show. It’s seems there has never been a more appropriate time for her to arrive.
War is Over! (If You Want It): Yoko Ono, November 15–February 23, 2014, MCA, Sydney, mca.com.au; Ideas at the House presents: In Conversation WithYoko Ono, November 17, Sydney Opera House, sydneyoperahouse.com.