YOKO ONO: MUSIC OF THE MIND at Tate Modern in Bankside

The narrative around Yoko Ono’s life has constantly been tied to her husband, John Lennon, and to his band the Beatles.

But Ms Ono has always had a mind of her own.

From February 15, Tate Modern in Bankside, will be looking into the ground-breaking work of the Tokyo-born artist and activist with the UK’s largest exhibition of her work.

Ms Ono is a trailblazer of early participatory art, film and performance, a celebrated musician, and campaigner for world
peace.

Spanning seven decades of the artist’s practice from the mid-1950s to now, YOKO ONO: MUSIC OF THE MIND will trace the development of her work and its enduring impact on contemporary culture.

The exhibition will bring together 200 works including installations, films, music and photography.

To start, visitors will see a selection of her ‘instruction pieces’ – written instructions that ask readers to imagine, experience, make or complete the work.

Some exist as a single verb such as FLY or TOUCH.

Others range from short phrases like Listen to a heartbeat and Step in all the puddles in the city to tasks Painting to be Constructed in your Head.

The heart of the exhibition will chart Ono’s radical works created during her five-year stay in London from 1966.

Here she became embedded within a countercultural network of artists, musicians and writers, meeting her future husband and long-time collaborator John Lennon.

Ono’s banned Film No. 4 – Bottoms – which she created as a petition for peace in 1966, will be displayed alongside material from her influential talk at the Destruction In Art Symposium.

As a child fleeing Tokyo during the Second World War, it was in the constant presence of the sky that Ono found solace and refuge.

It appears as a central theme throughout the exhibition alongside her commitment to feminism.

Picture: Yoko Ono, Cut Piece 1964 Performed by Yoko Ono March 21 1965. Picture: Minoru