Flying into Sydney the winds were
a bit rough and the plane bounced around quite a bit. I had a few white knuckle
moments as I braced myself and practiced some breathing exercises. Once we had
landed it was off to Circular Quay and the Museum of Contemporary Art to see
the Yoko Ono retrospective. I had no idea what to expect but I was interested,
very interested.
Inside the first thing on display
was a screening of the 1965 film Cut Piece of which I had only ever seen stills in
books. It was fascinating to watch as people came up to the artist to cut away
her clothing… The whole idea of what an artist is and how art is produced was
explored on camera in what appeared to be trying circumstances for the
‘artist’. Next was the chess board on which all the pieces were white so that
the game was played by people in a way where colour was not allowed to separate
or divide them. In a room to the side was the ‘Family Album’ collection which
contained a pair of John Lennon’s glasses covered in blood. Next was the giant
magnet towards which the contents of an entire room were being drawn. One of
the strongest messages of the exhibition is the participatory nature of Yoko
Ono’s art and therefore the importance of collaboration. Visitors are
constantly encouraged to participate. There is a phone inside a maze which Yoko
Ono calls each day… There are the helmets from the Vietnam War suspended from
the ceiling, inside which are pieces of a jigsaw puzzle of the sky… Visitors
are encouraged to take one and so the visitor is challenged to feel that they
are not touching something or stealing it (Though this interestingly wasn’t the
message that seemed to be conveyed in her film).
Towards the exits was a room with
another screen and there were hundreds of posters of her work and exhibitions
on the walls. There various books that she had published over the yeas
(including Grapefruit) and her music
on some tablets with headphones. I
listened to part of I Am a Witch
which was already five years old. The tracks had been remixed and jazzed up for
the new millennium. Cat Powers was one of the artists she had collaborated with
on this project. For Yoko Ono, the artist, the exhibition brought together all
of the work that she had done over many years both before and after John Lennon
and the impression was very powerful. This woman had been exploring these ideas
for a very long time. And the message was validated and made more powerful with
the passage of time which is pretty impressive given how weird and way out
these ideas had seemed in their heyday. In the end, it wasn’t Yoko Ono that
needed to change but the world around, not unlike Aung San Suu Kyi. Ultimately the
message is that we are all artists. No ivory towers here… Rapunzel has left the
building.
Outside the ferries were going to
and from the wharves while the tourists were surrounded by seagulls looking for
a feed. Some indigenous performers entertained a large crowd while a couple
paraded the dog in a pink tutu. Getting off at central station, a woman and a
man were arguing outside. Things came to a head when he suddenly took off from under
a torrent of expletives after which the woman gave chase, pelting him with
food.
