Maria Sierra London

London

Updated Wednesday, February 14, 2024-00:31

  • Interview Yoko Ono: 'People hated me for being close to John Lennon'

"Peace is power." "This work is to be stepped on." «Picture to see the sky». "Steal a moon from the water in the bucket, keep stealing until the moon is no longer visible"... These are some of Yoko Ono's messages and "instructions" that guide

the retrospective of seven decades

of artistic creation that the Tate Modern dedicates to her. at its London headquarters. Titled

Music of the Mind

, the exhibition inaugurated yesterday delves into the roots of this avant-garde of conceptual, collaborative and participatory art, which built bridges between the cultures of the East and the West and that challenges the public with a language and a way of doing things that are still relevant. .

Yoko Ono turns 91 on February 18

and her pacifist and humanitarian actions are as valid today as when she launched the campaign against the Vietnam War while in bed with John Lennon. A recording of the groundbreaking gesture is projected on the walls of the London museum, along with the censored

Film No. 4 (Culos)

and other legendary works from the 60s.

To know more

Photography.

Controversial photographer Kishin Shinoyama, who captured the intimacy of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, dies

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Controversial photographer Kishin Shinoyama, who captured the intimacy of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, dies

Cinema.

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Everything we have left to discover about the Beatles: neither Paul was an egomaniac nor Yoko was the bad guy

At the Tate Modern, graffiti "for the freedom of Palestine" and in solidarity with those who embark on boats covered the white background of the Refugee Boat installation, a few minutes after it was unveiled this Tuesday.

Ono conceived the concept in 1960

and realized it starting in 2016 in reaction to the Mediterranean migration crisis.

«With the situation in Gaza and Ukraine, one wonders, what is Yoko Ono thinking today? How many messages does she have to make so that the power pays attention? », Questions the professor and art critic Martina Margetts, in conversation with EL MUNDO. The academic highlights the nonagenarian artist's ability to "synthesize" the feelings and concerns of society with creative practices based on her experience during the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

She was 12 years old and was evacuated to the countryside from her birth. Tokyo.

Yoko Ono

«That fragmented and traumatic childhood generated an impetuous need to find more positive forms of expression. She needed to make art. It was an emotional response to the war,” explains Margetts. Curator Juliet Bingham agrees with the

"positive and usually humorous"

perspective with which Yoko Ono faces important issues in her early work, her collaborations with avant-garde composers, filmmakers and graphic artists before and after meeting Lennon. . No one disputes that the relationship would help "amplify" her pacifist and feminist messages on a global scale.

The marriage certificate, sealed in the

“city and garrison of Gibraltar”

on March 20, 1969, is displayed with other wedding memorabilia that would elevate the bride to the enemy of Beatles fans. The exhibition does not avoid the joint works of the famous couple, but it illuminates what "has been hidden because of being 'John Lennon's wife,'" according to Margetts. "So many female artists have been treated for so long from a sexist perspective, marginalized and undervalued, that this gigantic show is really important," she reflects.

The academic thinks that Ono is particularly attractive to young generations in the era of TikTok, YouTube and Instagram:

"They recognize her communication and performance tactics"

so that it is "a tremendously contemporary and historical exhibition at the same time."

Yoko Ono