thebroad.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cFor more than seven decades, Yoko Ono has expanded the possibilities of art as a force for connection and change,\u201d said Joanne Heyler, Founding Director and President of The Broad. \u201cPoetic and bold, her emphasis on community and activism is especially timely, reminding us that imagination binds us together and can be a powerful source of collective strength.<\/p>\n
Ono was born in 1933 in Tokyo and relocated to New York City in 1956, where she soon became an integral part of the city\u2019s emerging experimental art community. She played a key role in the early development of conceptual art and was closely involved in the formation of Fluxus, the global avant-garde collective of artists and composers that included renowned figures like George Maciunas, La Monte Young and John Cage.<\/p>\n
Her experiences as a young girl in the Japanese countryside fleeing the horrors of World War II inspired the fundamental principles of her artmaking, where she relied on her imagination for nourishment and to maintain hope. From early in her career, Ono believed that artistic production was not limited to a studio, gallery, or museum, and could live in the minds, bodies, and hearts of everyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince the 1950s, Yoko Ono has worked across genres and mediums from music and performance to visual art, contending with a complex spectrum of human emotion,\u201d said Sarah Loyer, curator and exhibitions manager. \u201cHer foundational contributions to 1960s conceptualism and her lifelong commitment to participation have redefined what art can be and do. The throughline across her immense body of work, created across the United States, the UK and Japan, is a sense of empowerment, both for herself and her audiences. The exhibition brings together a series of experiences that invite everyone to share in the act of creation and imagine change toward peace and equality.\u201d<\/p>\n
A belief that art could be made solely from the mind informed her early \u201cinstruction\u201d works from the mid-1950s to today that will be on view in the exhibition. In these interactive pieces, short texts describe actions for viewers to complete or reflect upon.<\/p>\n
On view will be the typescript drafts for her famous 1964 book Grapefruit, which includes over 200 of these \u201cinstructions\u201d arranged by types including music, painting, events, poetry and objects: \u201cListen to the sound of the Earth turning,\u201d \u201cFly,\u201d \u201cPut your shadows together until they become one,\u201d and \u201cDraw a map to get lost.\u201d These works, which prompt audiences to think, imagine, and question, exist somewhere between score and poem.<\/p>\n
In addition to the text-based works, a selection of the instructions will be activated for audience participation, such as \u201cPainting to Hammer a Nail\u201d (1961\/1966). Materials from the artist\u2019s international campaigns for peace and displays of anti-war activism will also be on view, such as \u201cAcorn Event\u201d (1968) and \u201cBed Peace\u201d (1969), projects done in collaboration with her late husband John Lennon. In 1968, Ono and Lennon planted two acorns as a living sculpture for the Exhibition of British Sculpture at Coventry Cathedral in England. Soon after, they sent acorns to world leaders to plant in their gardens as symbols of world peace. In 1969, the couple staged their famous \u201cbed-in\u201d events in Amsterdam and Montreal, leveraging media attention to speak out against the Vietnam War.<\/p>\n
Film and video feature heavily throughout the exhibition, including footage of Ono\u2019s most famous participatory performance work, Cut Piece, first performed at Yamaichi Hall, Kyoto in 1964, in which the audience was invited to cut away pieces of her clothing while she sat silently onstage. Also on view will be:<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u201cFILM NO. 1 (\u201cMATCH\u201d) \/ Fluxfilm No. 14\u201d (1966), capturing the striking of a match in slow motion<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u201cFILM NO. 4 (\u2018BOTTOMS\u2019)\u201d (1967), a work that was once banned by the British Board of Film Censors<\/p>\n
\u2022 Collaborative video works with Lennon such as “\u201cFLY\u201d (1970-71) and \u201cFreedom\u201d (1970) that address women\u2019s liberation.<\/p>\n
Contemporary installations created in the 2000s, such as \u201cHelmets (Pieces of Sky)\u201d (2001), invite audiences to envision new horizons through direct participation. In the work, guests are invited to take a puzzle piece from a series of overturned World War II-era German soldier helmets, suggesting that the pieces may come together to form a complete sky and that we are each part of a shared whole.<\/p>\n
In Ono\u2019s words, \u201cTake a piece of sky. Know that we are all part of each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Collective humanity is also at the heart of the installation \u201cMy Mommy is Beautiful\u201d (2004), where visitors can write thoughts about or pin photographs of their mothers. The work will accumulate personal stories throughout the exhibition\u2019s run, becoming a universal testimonial to the complexity of our relationships with our mothers. A full slate of associated programming with additional details will be announced in the coming months.<\/p>\n
\u201cYoko Ono: Music of the Mind\u201d is organized by Tate Modern, London in collaboration with The Broad, Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
The Broad\u2019s mission is to make contemporary art accessible to the widest possible audience.<\/p>\n
Founded in 2015 on Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles by philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad, the museum offers free general admission and presents an active program of special exhibitions and innovative live events, all within a landmark building designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro.<\/p>\n
The Broad is home to the Broad collection, one of the world\u2019s leading collections of postwar and contemporary art, which continues to grow as new artists and artworks are added.<\/p>\n
The museum is the headquarters of The Broad Art Foundation\u2019s worldwide lending library, which has been loaning collection works to museums around the world since 1984. An expansion of the museum will open before the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, creating even greater public access.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Broad is celebrating Yoko Ono, the artist, musician and activist whose work has shaped contemporary culture for…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":494357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[222571,1582,276,222573,222572,7657,2961,224,5337,101848],"class_list":{"0":"post-494356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-broad-art-foundation","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-coventry-cathedral","12":"tag-east-west-bank-plaza","13":"tag-john-lennon","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-yoko-ono"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115843222973003081","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}