YES Yoko Ono

Yoko Ono's activities as an artist span a truly broad variety of genres: art, music, film, and performance. Her work over the past four decades has taken her around the world, in which process she has come to influence a great number of people, starting with John Lennon.

Back in November 1966, she exhibited her "Ceiling Painting" (or the "YES Painting") at the Indica Gallery of London. Viewers had to climb up a white ladder in the center of the room, from where a magnifying glass hanging from the ceiling allowed them to view the word "YES" written in tiny letters on a framed piece of paper affixed to the ceiling. In fact, the work brought Ono and John Lennon together for the first time - some say that she used the work to seduce the already-married Lennon. There is a famous episode in which Lennon, having climbed up the ladder and read what was written, said, "I would have been quite disappointed if it had said 'NO,' but was saved by the fact it said 'YES'," The two married in 1969.


The "YES" in the title of the exhibition symbolizes the way that Yoko Ono emphasizes the positive in her works and activities. The following quote illustrates that attitude: "'YES' was my work and John encountered it and he went up the stairs and he looked at this word that said 'Yes.' At the time I didn't really think it would be taken so personally. But I don't really connect it with John as much as I connect it with my view of life. My view of life is the fact that there were many incredible negative elements in my life, and in the world, and because of that I had to conjure up a positive attitude within me in balance to the most chaotic ... and I had to balance that by activating the 'Yes' element. 'Yes' is an expression that I always carried and that I'm carrying."

The "YES Yoko Ono" Exhibition was originally organized in 2000 by the Japan Society (New York), with Alexandra Munroe serving as curator, assisted by Jon Hendricks as consulting curator. The exhibition won raves after touring around America, and has since moved to destinations overseas. In 2001, it won first prize for best museum show originating in New York by the International Association of Art Critics, the highest accolade in the museum profession. Munroe will be visiting at ATM at the beginning of the exhibition on October 25 to give a press conference and an opening talk.

Surprisingly, the ATM exhibition is the first full-fledged Yoko Ono retrospective ever to be held in Japan. It will feature 130 of her works - some from as far back as the 1960s, continuing down to the present - including 60 objects, 50 photographs and documents, five films, and 15 installations. Many of her works become "complete" only with participation by viewers, and some of the pieces on exhibit at Mito this time encourage an active connection by those viewing them. One of those will be her installation of 100 coffins, suggesting life and death. The "YES Yoko Ono" exhibition, a true compendium of this artist's body of work, argues for the importance of coexistence, imagination, and communication, and contains many messages that need to be relayed to the contemporary world, replete with uncertainty as it is.