Yoko Ono
Since emerging onto the international art scene in the early 1960s, Yoko Ono has made profound contributions to visual art, performance, filmmaking, and experimental music. Born in Tokyo in 1933, she moved with her family to New York in the mid-1950s and enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College. Over the next decade she lived in New York, Tokyo, and London, greatly influencing the international development of Fluxus and Conceptual art.
Ono’s earliest works were often based on instructions that she communicated to the public in verbal or written form. Painting to Be Stepped On (1960–61), for example, invited people to tread upon a piece of canvas placed directly on the floor, either physically or in their minds. Though easily overlooked, the work radically questioned the division between art and the everyday. In 1964, she compiled more than 150 of her instructions in her groundbreaking artist’s book, Grapefruit. The instructions range from feasible to improbable, often relying upon the reader’s imagination to complete the work. At turns poetic, humorous, unsettling, and idealistic, Ono’s early instruction pieces anticipated her later work, such as Cut Piece (1964), a performance in which people were invited to cut away portions of her clothing; Sky Machine (1966), a sculpture that speaks to her environmental concerns; and To See the Sky (2015), a spiral staircase installed beneath a skylight that visitors were invited to ascend in order to contemplate the sky.
Ono’s collaborations with her late husband, Beatles legend John Lennon, including Bed-In (1969), a weeklong antiwar protest in their honeymoon suite, boldly communicated her commitment to social justice. Never one to confine her work to the gallery space, Ono continues to perform with her avant-garde Plastic Ono Band, promote world peace through her ongoing WAR IS OVER! campaign, and create works that blur the boundaries between art, politics, and society. In recent years, she has embraced social media to communicate her artistic and activist messages to even broader audiences.
Introduction by Francesca Wilmott, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Drawings and Prints, 2016
The research for this text was supported by a generous grant from The Modern Women's Fund
- Introduction
- Yoko Ono Lennon ( OH-noh; Japanese: 小野 洋子, romanized: Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana オノ・ヨーコ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art, which she performs in both English and Japanese, and filmmaking. She was married to English singer-songwriter John Lennon of the Beatles from 1969 until his murder in 1980. Ono grew up in Tokyo and moved to New York in 1953 to live with her family. She became involved in New York City's downtown artists scene, which included the Fluxus group. With their performance Bed-Ins for Peace in Amsterdam and Montreal in 1969, Ono and Lennon used their honeymoon at the Hilton Amsterdam as a stage for public protests against the Vietnam War. The feminist themes of her music have influenced musicians as diverse as the B-52s and Meredith Monk. She achieved commercial and critical acclaim in 1980 with the chart-topping album Double Fantasy, a collaboration with Lennon that was released three weeks before his murder, winning the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.
- Wikidata
- Q117012
- Nationalities
- Japanese-American, American, Japanese
- Gender
- Female
- Roles
- Artist, Composer, Musician, Conceptual Artist, Multimedia Artist, Sculptor
- Names
- Yoko Ono, Yōko Ono, Ono, Ĭoko Ono, Йоко Оно, おおのようこ, おのようこ, オノヨーコ, オノヨ-コ, オノ・ヨーコ, 大野洋子, 大野陽子, 小野陽子
- Ulan
- 500115959
Exhibitions
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Public Space Artist Commissions
Ongoing
MoMA
Other installation
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410: At the Border of Art and Life
Fall 2019–Fall 2020
MoMA
Collection gallery
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Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done
Sep 16, 2018–Feb 3, 2019
MoMA
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Yoko Ono: One Woman Show,
1960–1971 May 17–Sep 7, 2015
MoMA
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Zero Tolerance
Oct 26, 2014–Apr 13, 2015
MoMA PS1
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Yoko Ono has
19 exhibitionsonline.
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Yoko Ono Painting to See the Sky 1961
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Yoko Ono Painting for the Wind 1961
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Yoko Ono Painting in Three Stanzas 1961
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Yoko Ono Painting for the Burial 1961
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Yoko Ono Smoke Painting 1961
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Yoko Ono Painting to Let the Evening Light Go Through 1961
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Yoko Ono Painting Until it Becomes Marble 1961
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Yoko Ono Painting to Enlarge and See 1961
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Yoko Ono Painting to Shake Hands 1961
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Yoko Ono Painting to See the Room 1961
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Yoko Ono Waterdrop Painting 1961
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Yoko Ono A Plus B Painting ("Let somebody other than yourself cut out…") 1961
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Yoko Ono A Plus B Painting ("Cut a circle on canvas A...") 1961
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Yoko Ono Painting to Hammer a Nail 1961
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Yoko Ono Painting To Be Constructed in Your Head ("Look through a phone book from the…") 1961
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Yoko Ono Painting for a Broken Sewing Machine 1961
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Various Artists, George Brecht, Claus Bremer, Earle Brown, Joseph Byrd, John Cage, Anthony Cox, David Degener, Walter De Maria, Ding Dong, Henry Flynt, Simone Forti, Dick Higgins, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Terry Jennings, Ray Johnson, Jackson Mac Low, Richard Maxfield, Robert Morris, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Terry Riley, Dieter Roth, James Waring, Emmett Williams, Christian Wolff, La Monte Young An Anthology 1962
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Yoko Ono Painting To Be Constructed in Your Head ("Hammer a nail in the center of a piece…") 1962
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Yoko Ono Painting To Be Constructed in Your Head ("Imagine dividing the canvas into twenty…") 1962
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Yoko Ono Painting To Be Constructed in Your Head ("Observe three paintings carefully…") 1962
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Yoko Ono Portrait of Mary ("Send a canvas to a Mary of any country...") 1962
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Yoko Ono Painting To Be Constructed in Your Head ("Go on transforming a square canvas…") 1962
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Yoko Ono Painting to See the Sky 1962
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George Brecht, Claus Bremer, Earle Brown, Joseph Byrd, John Cage, Anthony Cox, David Degener, Walter De Maria, Henry Flynt, Yoko Ono, Dick Higgins, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Terry Jennings, Dennis Johnson, Ding Dong, Ray Johnson, Jackson Mac Low, Richard Maxfield, Robert Morris, Simone Forti An Anthology 1963
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George Brecht, Claus Bremer, Earle Brown, Joseph Byrd, John Cage, Anthony Cox, David Degener, Walter De Maria, Henry Flynt, Yoko Ono, Dick Higgins, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Terry Jennings, Dennis Johnson, Ding Dong, Ray Johnson, Jackson Mac Low, Richard Maxfield, Robert Morris, Simone Forti, Nam June Paik, Terry Riley, Dieter Roth, James Waring, Emmett Williams, Christian Wolff, La Monte Young An Anthology of chance operations, concept art, anti art, indeterminacy, plans of action, diagrams, music, dance constructions, improvization, meaningless work, natural disasters, compositions, mathematics, essays, poetry 1963
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Yoko Ono Birth Announcement and announcement for Grapefruit 1963
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Yoko Ono Grapefruit 1964
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Yoko Ono Grapefruit 1964
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Yoko Ono Piece for Nam June Paik no. 1 1964
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Yoko Ono NIGHT AIR JUNE 16 夜 1964 1964
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Yoko Ono NIGHT AIR JULY 3 NIGHT 1964 1964
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Yoko Ono Part Painting/Series 5/to Tony Cox 1965
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Yoko Ono Typescript for Do It Yourself Fluxfest Presents Yoko Ono & Dance Co. c. 1965
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Yoko Ono Pieces for Orchestra to La Monte Young 1962/1965
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Yoko Ono Ono's Sales List 1965
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Yoko Ono Announcement for Morning Piece (1964) to George Maciunas, roof of Yoko Ono's apartment buildling, New York 1965
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Yoko Ono Self Portrait 1965
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Yoko Ono Bag Piece (1964), performed during Perpetual Fluxfest, Cinematheque, New York, June 27, 1965 1965
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Yoko Ono Bag Piece (1964), performed during Perpetual Fluxfest, Cinematheque, New York, June 27, 1965 1965
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Yoko Ono Bag Piece (1964), performed during Perpetual Fluxfest, Cinematheque, New York, June 27, 1965 1965
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Yoko Ono Bag Piece (1964), performed during Perpetual Fluxfest, Cinematheque, New York, June 27, 1965 1965
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Yoko Ono Bag Piece (1964), performed during Perpetual Fluxfest, Cinematheque, New York, June 27, 1965 1965
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Yoko Ono Bag Piece (1964), performed during Perpetual Fluxfest, Cinematheque, New York, June 27, 1965 1965
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Yoko Ono Bag Piece (1964), performed during Perpetual Fluxfest, Cinematheque, New York, June 27, 1965 1965
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Yoko Ono Bag Piece (1964), performed during Perpetual Fluxfest, Cinematheque, New York, June 27, 1965 1965
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Yoko Ono Four (Fluxfilm no. 16) 1966
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Yoko Ono One (Fluxfilm no. 14) 1966
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Yoko Ono Eyeblink (Fluxfilm no. 9) 1966
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