ART-TRIBUTE:Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono was born in 18/2/33, at Tokyo, and entered the Philosophy Department of Gakushuin University in 1952. She studied music and poetry at the Sarah Lawrence College, but left to elope with her first husband, Toshi Ichiyanagi. By 1960, she was an active participant in the New York avant-garde scene and was associated with pioneers like John Cage, George Maciunas and the Fluxus movement, whose manifesto includes the call to “Promote a revolutionary flood and tide in art, promote living art, Anti-Art”.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Faurschou Foundation Archive
Considered too radical by many, her work was not well-received, but she gained recognition after working with the jazz musician/film producer Anthony Cox (her second husband). Cox helped coordinate her “Interactive Conceptual Events” in the early ‘60s. She first met John Lennon in 1966 when he visited a preview of her exhibition at the Indica Gallery in London. Since Lennon’s death, Ono has continued her career, recording albums, performing concert tours and composing two off-Broadway musicals. She exhibited her work internationally. The exhibition “Golden Ladders” shows a variety of works from Yoko Ono’s extensive artistic career, and includes important pieces from her early Fluxus and Conceptual work. Based on verbal or written instructions for actions that are utopian, ephemeral and performable, Yoko Ono presents viewers with art which becomes a shared mental or physical experience. The exhibition begins outdoors with a “Wish Tree for Beijing garden”, planted with pine, bamboo and plum trees, symbolizing steadfastness, perseverance and resilience. Viewers are invited to write a wish and hang it on to a branch of a tree. At the end of the exhibition, all of the wishes will be sent to Yoko Ono’s Imagine Peace Tower to join wishes from millions of people from around the world who have participated the “Wish Tree project” dated back to 1966. “Golden Ladders” is another participatory concept, where viewers are invited to bring their own gold coloured ladders of any size, shape and material to join the installation, in which 7 ladders gilded with pure gold leaf were already made. The installation “Ex It”, originally made in 1997 strongly works on the awareness of the viewer when he walks through 70 coffins hastily built for victims from natural or human catastrophes. With the same types of trees found at the Wish Tree for Beijing garden, growing out from the opening at the head part of each coffin, the symbolic meaning of resurrection and eternity of life serves as a moral reminder that creates a consciousness about one’s own existence and our relationship with the others and the world. “To See The Sky”, a new work first exhibited earlier in 2015 at The MOMA, sends out a message that the journey to the light is accompanied by danger. Visitors who are attracted to climb up to the top of the spiral staircase will soon realize the staircase starts to get shaky, and makes it difficult to focus on gazing up at the sky.
Info: Golden Ladders, Faurschou Foundation Beijing, 798 Art District, NO2 Jiuxuanquao Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, Duration: 15/11/15-3/7/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 10:00-18:00, www.faurschou.com
