Yoko Ono opens art installation in Berlin

Yoko Ono has opened an art installation at Berlin’s Haunch Of Venison gallery in which one of the exhibits is a large pane of glass with a bullet hole.

The installation, titled Das Gift, contains sculpture, audio, film and instruction-based participatory elements, and addresses themes of “violence, healing, transformation, love, and questions the dichotomy of the personal and the global”

‘A Hole’ is the focal point of the exhibition. The 77-year-old artist said Berlin’s turbulent history made it an appropriate setting for the installation, but denied she created the bullet piece with Lennon’s assassination in mind.

In addition to the bullet hole, the sculpture has an instruction engraved on the glass, which reads: “Go to the other side of the glass and see through the hole”. It is intended to encourage visitors to see from the perspective of both the aggressor and victim.

I’d like to draw awareness to all the violence that is happening all over the world. I ask the people who come and visit the exhibition to bring something of their own personal experience with violence: a picture, or a text, that will then be placed on the gallery wall. In the upper floor, however, there will be a room where one only smiles.>

The smiles of visitors to the gallery will be filmed and streamed during the exhibition. A catalogue will also be available, with an essay by Hans Ulrich Obrist.

Das Gift translates as ‘The Poison’, and will be on show from 10 September to 13 November 2010.