Life, Exhibited: Yoko Ono at MoMA

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.

(The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection Gift, 2008. © 2014 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).

(Private collection. © Yoko Ono 2014)

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

(Photograph by Minoru Niizuma. © Minoru Niizuma. Courtesy Lenono Photo Archive, New York)

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

(The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection Gift, 2008. © Yoko Ono 2014)