I went to The Broad this past Thursday and saw the “Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind” exhibit. Available since May, I waited until the last possible moment — three days before the retrospective closed — to venture from Westwood to downtown. It’s safe to say that Yoko Ono’s patient and provocative art did not disappoint.
I had seen Ono’s face and poster all around Los Angeles and had even talked about the exhibit with friends. No one I knew from UCLA had gone or was planning to go. Every time she came up, though, people inevitably mentioned her in relation to The Beatles. I’m sorry to say that, before Thursday, the only conversation I could remember involving her went like this: a friend asked me who the most famous Beatle was, and the punchline was Yoko Ono.
I knew there was more to her than being loved by a boy and then blamed for that boy’s band breaking up. It feels wrong (especially now that I’ve seen the exhibit) that people only talk about Ono when they talk about John Lennon. I don’t hear anyone enunciate Ono’s vowels unless his are in the same breath. Meanwhile, her actual life’s work was spent dedicated to performance and art: sitting in front of crowds, typing up esoteric poems, selling sea glass from the future, and using creativity as a conduit for social critique. Now that is cool.
So enough about them (though I do love their song about LSD); I want to talk about her.
To situate you in my mind and the thoughts that will follow, which predominantly focus on one performance film, here is a schedule of my night:
6:19 PM — Arrived downtown and found parking (but had to parallel park, which was unfortunate). Fed the meter and walked five minutes to the museum’s entrance, where I bypassed the lines with a QR code and walked through the doors with ease.
6:25 PM — Read the first bit of writing on “Lighting Piece,” which framed Ono as a transient figure. Many of her artistic endeavors were inspired by being evacuated during WWII and the feeling of not belonging to either Japan or the U.S.
7:55 PM — Left the exhibit and drove back to UCLA.
Even though the exhibit was especially focused on music and sound, I found myself drawn to one specific segment: Cut Piece (1964), a performance film. It was shown in a room with black bags and three chairs. The Bag saw performers undress and redress in black bags, simulating sex and humanity; the three chairs stayed empty — a literal striptease with endless edging. Ono performed Cut Piece six times, but the one displayed at The Broad is her March 1965 performance at Carnegie Hall. Each time she performed, the art piece changed because of its reliance on and response to audience participation. She would sit in the center of a room, fully clothed, and people would walk up to her, crouch down, grab a pair of scissors, and cut some piece of what she was wearing away.
Deciding what to cut away and when to stop are the biggest questions I had while watching the piece. The action of cutting was as important as the action of stopping and dropping the scissors (either politely, rudely, harshly, or softly) on the ground. Some participants, often the men, were rough with their movements, their cuts, and even their facial expressions. Some women were, too. They didn’t look at Ono’s face, only her body, and seemed to assess her as a butcher would assess a carcass, evaluating the best way to carve it up. Even though the cutting was limited to Ono’s clothing, it was personal and intimate, as though each strip was a strip of skin.
Many participants rushed off after they finished, as if what they’d done were a crime. That fascinated me: the sudden sheepishness or desire to escape what they had been so willing to destroy. They usually cut and run, one and done, but one man — the final participant — continued on and on.
I was reminded of the importance of community as I watched this film. Specifically, I thought about the community I found sitting on a (surprisingly comfortable) bench. I could see other museum-goers’ reactions, hear their gasps, and even eavesdropped on a husband and wife’s argument about why Ono was just “sitting there.” An old woman with long white hair and a cane scoffed when the final participant, the man, took the scissors where no one else had — right to Ono’s breasts.
That same old woman with the cane rewatched the film several times, as I did. Every time he reached for Ono’s cleavage, cutting down and down to reveal her undershirt and then bra, I grew more and more frustrated. He kept going, even when he should’ve stopped. The woman and I seemed to be in agreement. He was being disrespectful and so very man-like, taking too much, overreaching, getting off on Ono’s discomfort. She said something along the lines of, “What an asshole.” I silently agreed. Ono was silent.
At this point, I had almost forgotten Ono chose to be on that stage and had curated and wrote the directions. She was steady, stoic, and collected.
I felt outrage at that final man, the one who cut and then cut some more. Even when it felt like he had already gone too far, he kept going. He would look off to the side, toward people behind curtains, and laugh, smile, and jeer. He was enjoying the destruction.
Ono kept her silence and took the abuse, but I felt her power. Sometimes she seemed to roll her eyes, not out of annoyance but rather as a way to let us — the audience watching in the sixties and today — know that she was a witness, as we all are, to cruelty and overreaching. She wasn’t just letting something happen to her; the context is paramount, as she designed the entire stage and had people act the way she knew they would when given the smallest scraps of power and a pair of scissors. In reality, though, she chose which fishnets to roll on her legs, she buttoned the black sweater before stepping onstage, and she decided what the piece would be called.
As Cut Piece ended, Ono’s arms were crossed, much like a child’s during Communion at a Catholic church. Without the systemic baptismal approval, kids who can’t eat the bread or drink the wine cross their arms and receive a blessing. Ono’s arms were crossed, propping up the last bits of fabric that kept her “decent.” Those crossed arms and the ruined, hanging bra straps, felt visceral and revealing. Not revealing of her, but of each person who came up and cut. It was revealing.
I swear I saw tears pool in Ono’s eyes, especially in the final shot of the film, but not one ever dropped to her cheeks. She was reflective — a living and breathing testament to what people will do when given free rein to cut. They’ll take and take, and while they could’ve cut ribbons out of her clothes or made something beautiful, they decided to be jagged and destructive.
Cut Piece provoked me; I’ve found myself thinking about what happens to bodies, especially women’s, when they’re available and free for the taking. This was a performance piece, a film from the sixties, and yet it was one of the most “real” things I’d seen. Ono believed a viewer completes an artwork, either physically or in their mind, because the ideas they have are the art. I felt like I became part of the art, sitting on that bench, scoffing with the old woman, and sketching in my journal. Years later, Ono’s work doesn’t exist in a silo because of exhibitions like this.
In this one film, one of many art pieces the exhibit showed (I also loved The Fly, where a naked actress is surrounded by New-York-native flies), I felt the full weight of Ono’s work and just how little time I had to experience, understand, analyze, and learn from it. The exhibit was closing soon (for the night and forever), and I wanted more time.
I can see how some might say Ono’s art is “just art that doesn’t make sense, and any second-grader could do it, doesn’t matter.” I can see that argument being made, but I don’t believe it. She wrote poems that are fragmented and disharmonious, but in their nonsense, they manage to make sense. Poems like Rubber Piece: “Imagine your body spreading rapidly all over the world like thin tissue. Imagine cutting out one part of the tissue. Cut out the same size rubber and hang it on the wall beside your bed” (Spring 1964). What does that mean? I don’t know.
Poems like Fog Piece III: “Send a fog to your friend” (Spring 1964). What is a fog? Again, I don’t know.
Even longer poems, like Painting for the Burial: “On the night of the full moon, place a canvas in the garden from 1 a.m. til dawn. When the canvas is dyed thoroughly in rose with the morning light, dismember or fold it and bury. The ways of burial: 1) Bury it in the garden and place a marker with a number on it. 2) Sell it to the rag man. 3) Throw it in the garbage” (Summer 1961).
There’s a tension when we read, watch, and try to understand things; we want to get it immediately, but what Ono’s work affirms is that you have to sit in that unknowing. That sitting is what makes the art.
Ono’s work is an iceberg, and I was sure I would be able to buy the book the exhibit kept referencing (Grapefruit). I had it in my head that I would be able to take it home, hold it in my hands, and flip through it at leisure, but when I asked the cashier near The Broad’s exit, she said it was sold out. She said to come earlier next time. There will be no next time, though.
Take it from me: if you see a poster about someone you think you know but really don’t, go to that exhibit. The earlier, the better. Odds are you can find a way in for free, as I did, and you’ll leave feeling full(er) than you would have had you stayed at home. Life is more than Canvas (the app), assignments, and emails. Ono’s work, in particular, touches the space between an art piece and an audience, and though it sounds straightforward, I found it revolutionary.
I got so much out of this evening at The Broad, and though I could harp on and on about going sooner, I do believe we find things when we’re meant to. Just as you found this article, you will find your own Yoko Ono exhibit, your own art, your next favorite song, your next poem, your next anything. Go forth and enjoy it.
