Yoko Ono | Page 31 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Growing Freedom: Q&A with Yoko Ono on art, peace and the Montreal Bed-In

Snippets from the article. There’s much more to it.

Sounds like an interesting exhibit.

As the clock ticks down to the 50th anniversary of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Montreal Bed-In for Peace at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, beginning May 26, a major exhibition of Ono’s artwork titled Growing Freedom is set to open at the Fondation Phi pour l’art contemporain (previously DHC/ART).

A career-spanning selection of Ono’s instructional works will be on display in one of the Fondation Phi pour l’art contemporain’s two neighbouring buildings in Old Montreal; the other will showcase her artistic collaborations with Lennon, with an emphasis on the Montreal Bed-In and the recording of the anthem Give Peace A Chance .

Ono is a woman of few words, and she chooses them carefully. She responded to questions from the Montreal Gazette by email, and her brief answers are like art pieces in themselves, demonstrating a dry wit, economy of language and a flair for the poetic.

As such, it seemed improper to edit or take them out of context. So here is what was asked, and what she had to say.

Montreal Gazette: What is art to you?

Yoko Ono: It is.

(snip)

Gazette: Throughout your career, you have challenged notions of art and broken down divisions between different categories of art. How would you describe your approach to the art world and your place within it?

Ono: The art world changes and I change too.

(snip)

Gazette: This show in Montreal is titled Growing Freedom. What does that title mean to you?

Ono: We’re still growing, John and Yoko.

(snip)

… Ono’s instructional works — wherein viewers are required do something, i.e. to interact with the art piece or each other in some way …

… Rather than being a survey, or a show of art-historical pieces, this would be a show about doing things, about participating, with the viewers completing the works. …

(snip)

A selection of Yoko Ono’s instructional artworks, described by Cheryl Sim, managing director and curator at the Fondation Phi pour l’art contemporain.

Mend Piece (1966-present): “The instructions are to take pieces of broken pottery and put them together with string and glue.”

Cleaning Piece (1966): “You select a rock, hold onto it, and the instructions are about ridding yourself of sadness and anger.”

My Mommy is Beautiful (2004): “You write down an ode to your mother and paste it up on the wall.”

Imagine Peace (Maps) (2007): “You have a stamp that says Imagine Peace, and you stamp it on a map where you want peace to occur.”

Water Event (1971/2016): “We have invited six male and six female Canadian artists to Montreal to create a work that Yoko provided instructions for.”

Arising (2013-present): “This is a work in which she invites women to share stories of harm done to them just for being a woman, and to send their stories along with a photo of their eyes.”

Two more Ono exhibits are going on as part of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC)’s River to River Festival

https://www.e-flux.com/announc…..ugee-boat/

The boat one about refugees was first done in Greece in 2016. The people that come to the festival in NYC can participate in making the one this year.

I think it is so cool that art galleries are still showing Yoko’s work. Maybe I’ll be close enough an exhibition to go to one sometime. Come on and come to Dallas! Please!

https://calgaryherald.com/ente…..f-yoko-ono

Timothy said
People can talk about manipulation but at the end of the day John made his own decisions. 

  

But then you hear the inane bullshit of John being brainwashed or some sort of weird behaviour control that Yoko somehow had over him. There are folk who will forever hold the opinion that Yoko was evil and bad and nothing will ever change that, no matter what is said or presented to them.