ART CITIES:Buenos Aires-Yoko Ono

In 1961, Yoko Ono began working in conceptual and participatory art, avant-garde music, experimental film, and performance. Her work aroused the interest of important figures like Marcel Duchamp, and George Maciunas. She has done collaborative projects with artists like Nam June Paik and the Fluxus group. In 1964, she published Grapefruit, her mythical book of instructions.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: MALBA Archive

“Yoko Ono. Dream Come True”, at MALBA, is the first retrospective of Yoko Ono in Argentina. The project encompasses two instances: the exhibition in MALBA’s galleries and the exhibition and communication of many works in the public space, the mass media, the internet, and social media. The exhibition includes 80 works, among them texts, objects, videos, films, installations, and sound recordings produced from the early ‘50s to the present. The core of the exhibition is the “Instruction Pieces,” which Ono has been working on for over 60 years. The title of the show can be read as a metaphor for Ono’s artistic career, but also as a commentary on the current global situation which, in Ono’s view, can be improved by group participation and creative exchange. Ono was one of the first to question the concept of the work of art and the artwork as object, breaking traditional boundaries between artistic disciplines. By inviting viewers to play an active role in the production of the work, she has created a new modality in the relationship between artist and viewer. The “Instruction Pieces” consist of simple and poetic messages that invite viewers to perform specific actions. In the framework of the retrospective, Yoko Ono has invited Latin American women who have been subjected to gender violence to form part of the Arising/Resurgiendo project. The work compiles the testimonies (a text that describes the experience and a photograph of the eyes of the participant) in an installation in MALBA and on the exhibition’s website.  Also, for the exhibition, Ono invited a group of 12 Latin American artists to produce a work-vessel capable of “taking water” to people, whether to heal their minds or to recognize their courage in expressing themselves.

Info: Curators: Agustín Pérez Rubio and Gunnar B. Kvaran, MALBA, Avda. Figueroa Alcorta 3415, Buenos Aires, Duration: 24/6-31/10/16, Days & Hours: Wed 12:00-21:00, Thu-Mon 12:00-20:00, www.malba.org.ar