Yoko Ono’s work is exhibited in London during an exceptional retrospective

This is the largest retrospective ever devoted to Yoko Ono. Entitled “Music of the Mind”, the exhibition proposed by the Tate Modern explores the multiple creations of the Japanese artist.

John Lennon described it as “the most famous unknown artist in the world : everyone knows her name, but no one knows what she does”. To get out of the vagueness, the work of Yoko Ono is at the heart of a retrospective entitled Music of the Mind, which takes place at the Tate Modern in London from February 15 to September 1, 2024.

Aged 90, Yoko Ono is better known to the general public for being the widow of the former Beatles than an icon of conceptual art. “This exhibition truly celebrates the artist that Yoko was,” explains Andrew de Brun, one of the commissioners, to AFP. “John Lennon was an important contributor to her, but we are very happy to exhibit his art.”

A committed artist

Retracing seven decades, the museum presents 200 works, installations, objects, videos, photos, sculptures and documents that look back on his performances and musical compositions. The retrospective, presented as the largest to date, “recognizes the importance of Yoko Ono in contemporary art and culture”, underlines the commissioner. “We are delighted to present his work to new generations of visitors”, “his activism, his campaigns for peace”, he adds.

Since her first exhibition in New York in the 1950s, Tokyo-born Yoko Ono has distinguished herself in conceptualism, a movement according to which the idea is more important than the work itself. The exhibition looks at some of his most controversial works, including the video for Cut Piece, which she presented in Japan then at the Carnegie Recital Hall in New York.

On stage, she appears in a black dress, leaving scissors behind her, allowing the audience to cut off her clothes, in order to draw attention to the violence that society inflicts on women. The exhibition celebrates the journey of the artist, who for decades was accused by some of being responsible for the breakup of the Beatles in 1970.

His installations at the Indica Gallery in London in 1967 captivated John Lennon. On this occasion, a work called Ceiling Painting/Yes Painting offered visitors the chance to climb a ladder to see the word “yes” on the ceiling through a magnifying glass. Lennon climbed the ladder and was dazzled by the work, now on display in London.

Art at the heart of her marriage to Lennon

“When Painting to Hammer a Nail was exhibited at the Indica Gallery, someone came and asked me if he could hammer in a nail. I said it would be okay if he gave me five shillings”, or a few cents, remembers Yoko Ono in her text Some Notes on the Lisson Gallery Show. “Instead of paying five shillings, he asked if he could hammer in an imaginary nail. It was John Lennon.”

They married in 1969 and remained together until Lennon was assassinated in New York in 1980, at the age of 40. During their thirteen years together, the couple released six albums and created recordings of experimental music, short films, performances and installations.

Along with Lennon, Yoko Ono achieved success in music, an aspect also covered in the exhibition. In 1980, with the album Double Fantasy, recorded before Lennon’s death, the pair won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. “When I hear music, my body starts to move”, Yoko Ono said in a 2013 interview. “I’m like that. It’s my body. It was already the case as a child.”