Yoko Ono - Music of the Mind. Part 3

Yoko Ono - Music of the Mind

at Tate Modern.

This is the second post on this exhibition. If you like to see the first two parts go  here  and  here .  As I would like each post to stand on its own, I have included the introduction from the first post, so, if you have read that already, scroll down to the first photograph.

I am a great fan of Ono's work so it was a real pleasure seeing this exhibition, which by the way, was on quite a while ago. 

I also saw a retrospective of her work in Copenhagen, and you can see that here

Music of the Mind celebrates the work of artist and activist Yoko Ono. The exhibition explores Ono's conceptual practice, foregrounding ideas over objects, alongside her ongoing campaign for world peace. It takes its title from the artist's desire to stimulate the imagination. Ono notes: 'The only sound that exists to me is the sound of the mind. My works are only to induce music of the mind in people... In the mind-world, things spread out and go beyond time'.

The exhibition traces Ono's radical approach to art, language and participation, from her early 'instruction' pieces to her recent, large-scale installations. It covers seven decades of her expansive practice from 1955 to today. During this time, Ono moved between Japan, the US and the UK, before settling in New York in 1971.

Following a loose chronology, the exhibition highlights recurring ideas and themes in Ono's work, making connections across time and place.

Ono's art takes many forms. It includes scores, performances, objects, film, music, sound and events. In 1964, Ono published Grapefruit, her foundational book of instruction works. These concise texts, somewhere between poem and score, aim to unlock the mind. Instructions are presented throughout the exhibition, calling you to participate, often with others.

Ono invites one to realise her artworks - to construct paintings in the mind, perform inside a bag, play a game of chess and share memories and wishes. But, most importantly, she invites us to imagine. This collective call to action is a provocation to change the world, one wish at a time.

A dream alone is only a dream.

A dream you dream together is reality.

Yoko Ono.

It's been very difficult getting these posts together, given the nature of Ono's art, its conceptual nature which is very cerebral, but I hope I have done it justice

Film No. 4, Bottoms, (film)

Film No. 4, Bottoms strings together footage off around 200 buttocks. For Ono, they represented 'the London scene today'. Participants included artists John and Barbara Latham, writers George Andrews and Eddie Wolfram, and sculptor David Annesley. The audio includes conversations between the participants, Ono and her husband Anthony Cox. At times, the recordings are deliberately out of sync with the images and mixed with Ono's interviews with the British press. Ono's film score for the work instructed: 'String Bottoms together in place of signatures for petition of peace'.

The British Board of Film Censors banned Bottoms, deeming it 'not suitable for public exhibition'. Ono staged a peaceful protest outside their headquarters. She handed out daffodils to reporters and held up images from the film with text that asked, 'What's wrong with this picture?'. Ono told the reporters, 'the whole idea of the film is one of peace. It's quite harmless. It is not in the least bit dirty or kinky. There's no murder or violence'. Eventually the film was granted an x rating and screened in selected cinemas.

Poster for world premiere screening of Ono's Film No. 4, Bottoms


Surrender to Peace:

The works below bring together works from the mid 1960s to 2009. They reveal Ono's use of the sky as a metaphor for freedom, her ambition to heal the self and the world, and the message of peace.

In 1983, Ono placed an advert in the New York Times that took the form of an article titled 'Surrender to Peace'. She wrote: 'Our purpose is not to exert power but to express our need for unity despite the seemingly unconquerable differences. We as the human race have a history of losing our emotional equilibrium when we discover different thought patterns in others. Many wars have been fought as a result. It's about time to recognise that it is all right to be wearing different hats as our heartbeat is always one'.

The concepts of trauma and healing run consistently throughout Ono's practice. As a child fleeing the bombing of Tokyo during WWII, Ono found comfort in the constant presence of the sky. She remembers: 'Even when everything was falling apart around me, the sky was always there for me... I can never give up on life as long as the sky is there'.

Ono is deeply critical of violence, believing the world can start to  heal if violence is confronted. Much of her work is an invitation to see the world differently, from another perspective. This approach is encapsulated in the a work A Hole. A pane of glass shot by a bullet reads: 'Go to the other side of the glass and see through the hole'.

A Hole, 2009, (engraved glass, shot with a bullet hole, steel frame).





Engraved: A Hole/ Go to the other side of the glass and see through the hole.





Fly, (24-minute film)

Ono and Lennon settled in New York at the start of the 1970s. They continued to collaborate on projects and Fly was made during this time.

Ono has long explored the dynamics of power, vulnerability and violence in her art and music. In this film she engages with the women's liberation movement of the late 1960s and 1970s. Second-wave feminism moved beyond the first-wave focus on suffrage, advocating for far greater societal change. For Ono, this includes explorations of power structures, women's oppression and role in society, discrimination and the nature of equality.





The score of the film reads, 'let a fly walk on a woman's body from toe to head and fly out of the window'. It features actress Virginia Lust, real flies 'supplied by New York City' and a multilayered soundtrack that mixes Ono's voice with guitar instrumentals by Lennon. Ono describes both the woman's body and the fly as representations of herself. The fly carries associations of dirt and decay while also embodying the concept of a free spirit. Ono frequently explores flight as a physical act and a metaphorical concept. Both act as symbols of liberation and empowerment.

In 1971 Ono wrote her manifesto, The Feminisation of Society, noting: 'If we try to achieve our freedom within the framework of the existing social set-up, men, who run the society, will continue to make a token gesture of giving us a place in their world'.

Helmets (Pieces of Sky), 2001, (military helmets, puzzle pieces, instruction)

Ono invites us to take a piece of the sky, which she sees as a hopeful symbol of limitless imagination. The pieces are presented in German army helmets from WWII, referencing the violent fragmenting of hope through war. Despite being dispersed, the puzzle pieces are still designed to come together and reform the sky. They suggest the possibility for healing through collective action or thought.

'Take a piece of the sky. 

Know that we are all 

part of each other'.






Add Colour (Refugee Boat)

Add Colour (Refugee Boat) begins as an all-white boat in an all-white room. Ono's instruction for this collective, participatory work reads: 'Just blue like the ocean. You are invited to contribute your hopes and beliefs in blue and white'.

Ono made her first Add Colour work at the Chambers Street loft in 1961, splattering sumi ink onto a long stretch of raw canvas. She developed the idea in 1966, at Indica Gallery in London, inviting her audience to add colours to small blank canvases to make a collective work of art. With Add Colour (Refugee Boat), Ono invites us to consider the impact collective action can have. The work encapsulates her belief in human agency and her understanding that 'we are sharing this world' and sharing our responsibility for it.

Ono conceived the work after being moved by international press coverage of the hundreds of thousands of refugees risking their lives to travel to Europe by sea. This participatory work invites you to reflect on this urgent and ongoing refugee crisis. 

The personal is political:

The last two works reveal Ono's use of personal experiences and reflection to encourage collective responses.

My Mommy is Beautiful is a two-part work exploring our relationship to our mothers. Suspended at height, a series of photographs embody Ono's humour and humanity. She comments: 'one has to look up at the vagina and the breasts on the ceiling - rather like looking up at your mom's body when you are a baby'. 

Ono invites you to: 'Write your thoughts of your mother. Or pin a photograph of her to the canvas'. The hope is that the work evolves over the course of the exhibition as an intimate homage to mothers.  

My Mommy is Beautiful

Write your thoughts

of your mother.

Or pin a photograph

of her to the canvas.

Ono states that all her work 'is a form of wishing'. The exhibition closed with WHISPER, performed by Ono in her eightieth year. The artist's powerful vocals repeat the words 'I wish... let me wish'.  For Ono, our most important wish is one for peace. In her words:

Power works in mysterious ways. We don't have to do much

Visualise the domino effect and just start thinking PEACE.

Thoughts are infectious. Send it out.

The message will circulate faster than you think.

It's Time for Action.

The Action is PEACE

Think PEACE, Act PEACE, Spread PEACE.