{"id":273624,"date":"2025-11-05T19:27:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T19:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/273624\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T19:27:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T19:27:13","slug":"yoko-ono-retrospective-invites-audience-to-join-in-creative-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/273624\/","title":{"rendered":"Yoko Ono Retrospective Invites Audience to Join in Creative Process"},"content":{"rendered":"

Visitors to \u201cYoko Ono: Music of the Mind<\/a>\u201d at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago might be surprised by what they find. Ono<\/a>, who is now 92 years old, has always invited audiences to be part of her art, and this show continues that tradition. In a video on loop at the entrance to the exhibition, Ono\u2019s studio director Connor Monahan says, \u201cYoko considered her performances as works for others to perform as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

To that end, there are over 200 works on display and plenty can be viewed passively (most notably, pages from her 1964 book Grapefruit). But why just look when you can be part of Ono<\/a>\u2019s creative process? Options include: hammering nails into a board (Painting to Hammer a Nail), or writing and hanging wishes on a tree (Wish Tree), playing chess on a pristine white table (White Chess Set), or sharing thoughts and photos related to motherhood (My Mommy is Beautiful)?<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Handwritten<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYoko Ono, Secret Piece, (1953). From typescripts for Grapefruit, 1963\u201364.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: \u00a9 Yoko Ono.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Tree<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYoko Ono, Wish Tree for Stockholm, (1996\/2012). Installation view, \u201cYoko Ono: Grapefruit,\u201d Moderna Museet, Stockholm, (2012).
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Moderna Museet\/\u00c5sa Lund. \u00a9 Yoko Ono. <\/p>\n

This is the only stop in the U.S. for the show, which arrived in Chicago after record-breaking attendance at Tate Modern<\/a> in London<\/a>. It revisits key moments in the career of a woman who many naively viewed as the wife of a rock star, displaying creations across multiple media, including installation, film, music, and print material. \u201cYoko Ono is a wildly influential and significant figure in performance, conceptualism, music, and activism,\u201d noted MCA\u2019s Manilow senior curator Jamillah James in a statement about the show. \u201cShe has inspired generations of audiences to think differently about the everyday and seeing art.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Close-up<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYoko Ono
\nFLY, (1970\/1971).
\n16 mm film (color, mono sound).
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: \u00a9 Yoko Ono.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Green<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYoko Ono, Apple, (1966). Installation view, \u201cYoko Ono: One Woman Show,\u201d 1960\u20131971, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 2015.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Thomas Griesel. \u00a9 Yoko Ono. Digital Image \u00a9 2015 MoMA, N.Y. <\/p>\n

Notable works include Cut Piece (1964), a slightly uncomfortable to watch performance piece that, to this day, is considered a landmark of feminist art. In it, Ono sits on a stage while participants come up, one by one, and use scissors to cut off a piece of her clothing until there\u2019s (almost) nothing left. Other highlights include avant-garde films like the then-banned Film No. 4 (Bottoms), depicting a series of naked backsides, and a specially curated room dedicated to Ono\u2019s musical and sonic works (including collaborations with the likes of John Cage and her late husband, renowned musician John Lennon<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Blue<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYoko Ono\u2019s Add Colour (Refugee Boat) (1960\/2016).<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: \u00a9 Oliver Cowling, courtesy of Tate. \u00a9 Yoko Ono<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Person<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYoko Ono, Cut Piece, (1964). Performance view, \u201cNew Works by Yoko Ono,\u201d Carnegie Recital Hall, New York, NY, March 21, 1965.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Minoru Niizuma. \u00a9 Yoko Ono<\/p>\n

There are also several works that reflect her long-standing commitment to peace and social justice. The aforementioned banned film is one of them; others include public artworks like Imagine Peace, which had many iterations including the transformation of multiple electronic billboards in New York City\u2019s Times Square into displays featuring the phrase \u201cImagine Peace,\u201d shown in 24 different languages. \u201cYoko always says [that] the job of the artist is not to destroy but to change the value of things. The amount of potential in that is incredible to me,\u201d observed Monahan. \u201cEverything is unfinished and there\u2019s always the possibility of change. I think that puts you in a really hopeful place to live.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Vintage<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYoko Ono, SKY TV, (1966). Installation view, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., 2014.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Cathy Carver. \u00a9 Yoko Ono. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Art<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYoko Ono, Helmets (Pieces of Sky), (2001). Installation view, \u201cYoko Ono: Between the Sky and My Head,\u201d Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, UK, 2008.\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Person<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYoko Ono, Freedom (still), (1970). 16mm film (color, mono sound).\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Wall<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYoko Ono, PEACE is POWER, (2017). Installation view, \u201cYoko Ono: The Learning Garden of Freedom,\u201d Funda\u00e7\u00e3o de Serralves \u2013 Museu de Arte Contempor\u00e2nea, Porto, Portugal, 2020.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Filipe Braga. \u00a9 Yoko Ono<\/p>\n

\u201cYoko Ono: Music of the Mind\u201d is on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art<\/a> through February 22, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Visitors to \u201cYoko Ono: Music of the Mind\u201d at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago might…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-273624","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}