Life, Exhibited: Yoko Ono at MoMA

Cut Piece (1964) performed by Yoko Ono in New Works of Yoko Ono, Carnegie Recital Hall, New York, March 21, 1965.

Yoko Ono discusses her latest exhibit at MoMA. In late 1971, Yoko Ono announced an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art—a one-woman show that she irreverently titled Museum Of Modern (F)art. Outside the entrance, a man wore a sandwich board stating that Ono had released a multitude of flies and that the public was invited to follow their flight within the Museum and across the city. Now, over 40 years later, Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960–1971 surveys the decisive decade that led up to that unauthorized exhibition at MoMA, bringing together her early objects, works on paper, installations, performances, audio recordings, and films, alongside rarely seen archival materials. The exhibit is on view from May 17 to September 7.

Works by Yoko Ono, poster, Carnegie Recital Hall, New York, November 24, 1961. Photograph by George Maciunas.

 

Yoko Ono (Japanese, born 1933) Touch Poem #5. c. 1960. Hair, ink on paper, 9 7/8 × 13 7/16″ (25 x 34.1 cm).

 

Yoko Ono with Standing Woman (1932) by Gaston Lachaise, The Museum of Modern Art Sculpture Garden, New York. c. 1960–61.

 

Yoko Ono and John Lennon. WAR IS OVER! if you want it. 1969. Offset, 29 15/16 x 20” (76 x 50.8 cm).