yoko ono
Name: Yoko Ono
Born: February 18, 1993 in Tokyo, Japan
Occupation: Contemporary multimedia artist, peace activist, singer
Nationality: Japanese
Born: February 18, 1993 in Tokyo, Japan
Occupation: Contemporary multimedia artist, peace activist, singer
Nationality: Japanese
Their practice: As a contemporary, conceptual, and informative artist that bred artworks of technology, performance, and audience participation, Ono was primarily, a defining moment in the timeline of art. Ono drew a lot of her inspiration from the Fluxus movement, as well as incorporating her passion for music, peace, and relationship with deceased partner John Lennon to her art making. Not only was she widely recognised for her artistic abilities; Ono was a feminist and peace activist. She strongly and passionately believed in gender equality, demolishing discrimination, and the social issues that overran the world she lived in. Each artwork she created and performed, made a passionate statement of an issue currently inflicting her life. Her practice was about absorbing messages, potentially shifting habits, and expanding society’s mind into releasing new ideas – primarily, an era of peace. Ono draws most of her practice from her personal experiences, as she reflects them on society and the years in which she lived. Her practice is raw and captivating, as it communicates her concepts and mind vibrantly to the world.
How are they exhibited? Yoko Ono's artworks are exhibited in galleries (specifically of Contemporary Art). Her artworks can also be seen on the Internet and in books, but only as copies through her gallery pieces.
How does the audience experience their work? When viewing and experiencing Yoko Ono’s artworks, the audience became challenged and more opinionated. With Ono’s work being socially influentially and often challenging to human experience, the audience had been given more availability to challenging society and thinking more individually. The audience’s role in Ono’s work was more expressive, as her Contemporary stance made a revolutionary statement in the art world.
Ono passionately involved herself in audience participation. Ono created her artworks for the public, making audience participation a crucial part in her practice. Not only did she want audience participation, she needed it for her practice to become successful. Artworks such as ‘Cut Piece’ and ‘Play It By Trust’ were functioned by the audience; their intentions were only successfully recognised when the audience involved themselves in becoming part of it. Most of the reasoning for audience participation is due to Ono’s practice being socially and politically involved. Ono created artworks that challenged the current state of society, which included ongoing social issues and the power of expression within an individual. With involving the audience more frequently, Ono’s practice became an iconic feature in the movement of Contemporary Art.
Ono passionately involved herself in audience participation. Ono created her artworks for the public, making audience participation a crucial part in her practice. Not only did she want audience participation, she needed it for her practice to become successful. Artworks such as ‘Cut Piece’ and ‘Play It By Trust’ were functioned by the audience; their intentions were only successfully recognised when the audience involved themselves in becoming part of it. Most of the reasoning for audience participation is due to Ono’s practice being socially and politically involved. Ono created artworks that challenged the current state of society, which included ongoing social issues and the power of expression within an individual. With involving the audience more frequently, Ono’s practice became an iconic feature in the movement of Contemporary Art.
Artworks:
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Artist: Yoko Ono
Name: Cut Piece Date: 1964 Medium: Performance |
- ‘Cut Piece’ by Yoko Ono is a performance piece where Ono sits on the floor of the gallery fully clothed. She places a pair of scissors next to her and silently invites the surrounding audience to cut any piece of clothing off one at a time. Doing so, she does not flinch or acknowledge the audience’s presence. The artwork is about trusting the audience and moving away from the roles of the artist and the audience – including what separates them. As a universally recognised peace activist and feminist, Ono is making a clear and passionate political statement through this artwork. Ono’s fully clothed gear makes a stance on the social construct of women. Women, who are constantly at battle with society’s ethics of clothing, attractiveness, and sexual appeal is represented through this layering of clothing. Ono expresses that the way women are constructed within society, being shamed for too much clothing and not enough clothing, as well as being sexually active and inactive, are extremely controversial. Every move a woman makes, every decision she makes for her own self, her own body, is being judged by society and as Ono continues to expresses, is a sexist double standard that should no longer exist.
- The clothing symbolises women in a problematic society by challenging the audience with the denial to comment on it. Without skin showing, without an expression plastered on Ono’s face, it is left her body in a shape of a human being – not a female.
- The scissors is a symbol of society’s power. By handing over the scissors to the audience or in this case, society, Ono is giving them the power to make a comment about her. But as the audience does so by continuing to strip Ono of her clothes into rags and soon into nudity, it becomes clear to the audience of their power. Once the audience begins to strip Ono of not only her clothes but also of her rights as human being, the public realise that the term ‘freedom of speech’ is misinterpreted to also mean ‘I don’t need an explanation for my wrongdoings, here is the excuse: I have freedom of speech’.
- Clearly, this was Ono’s initial intention. But for the audience to realise it for themselves that this ongoing sexist discrimination was not only progressing but also spreading, they had to learn themselves. Ono’s ‘Cut Piece’ audience participation was about planting seeds of individualism and ethical self-teaching, as she wanted the audience to learn and grow from their experience after interacting with the artwork. As Ono is a strong believer in ethical standards in social contexts, she believed that individualism was just as important. Pairing them together to find your own morals and being ethically, socially correct was Ono’s main goal.
- The power is given to the audience so they can witness their own mistakes.
- Once the audience had finished dismantling Ono’s outfit, it left her bear in sheets of clothing. Ono was striped or more so, torn of her identity. Her identity as a human into the social construct of her gender.
- Ono’s expressionless face and motionless stance represents the isolation women feel in society’s standards.
- ‘Helmets/ Piece of Sky’ by Yoko Ono is an installation piece that displays various helmets being hung from the gallery ceiling. Each helmet is filled with sky-printed jigsaw pieces that consume the helmets and are available for the public to take.
- The helmets are replicas of the helmets used by the soldiers in World War II, an era Ono personally lived through. The helmets represent the state of the world during World War II, a state of clear terror, isolation, and fear, which evidently, was accustomed to Ono.
- The helmets symbolise the soldiers and everything they represent, which clearly, is a paradox compared with the jigsaw pieces in them. The sky-printed jigsaw pieces are items that signify limitless hope and freedom of terror – everything the helmets cease to display. This however, does not mean that the soldiers of World War II did not ever encounter this human experience of cognitive freedom. Being buried deep into the helmets, the jigsaw pieces represent buried, forgotten, and undiscovered emotions of hope. The pieces, which are all separated and not connected as its full puzzle, symbolise that the idea of joy and hope have been dismantled and distantly ruined beyond repair.
- The helmets are hung upside down and strung from the ceiling at different lengths. This is a symbol of the soldiers carrying this emotion of forgotten hope at different speeds and depths.
- By allowing the audience to take pieces of this artwork, Ono is allowing them to understand and share the experience of these soldiers. By taking these pieces willingly, the audience is forced to understand the symbolism of the pieces and what it means to dig into their helmets or more so, minds, and take apart of their life. Ono allows this audience participation so the public can gain recognition for the events of World War II and a thorough, accurate understanding of some of the mental problems the soldiers dealt with during and after the war.
- Ono’s audience participation also allows many members of the public to gather up pieces and rebuild the puzzle. By allowing this, the audience and current public connects together as a community to understand the soldiers of World War II. This is Ono’s initial intention; to revolutionise the way society understands its history.