As a major retrospective of her work opens in London, artists and writers recall their brushes with a cultural one-off. Yoko Ono, often referred to as John Lennon’s widow, is being heralded at Tate Modern as “a leading figure in conceptual and performance art, experimental film and music”. The criticisms she faced as an Asian woman in the public eye in the 1960s and 70s are well known; she was an impostor in the male-dominated rock music world of her husband John Lennon. However, Yoko Ono was an established artist in her own right and a member of the international avant garde art movement Fluxus. Despite the adversity, her 1964 work “Cut Piece” became a feminist classic, and her instruction pieces in the hit book “Grapefruit” invited readers to see the world in a new way through tasks such as “recording the sound of snow”. These elements have fueled the argument that it is time to see her as a great artist in her own right, separate from her association with Lennon.
In the 1970s, Yoko Ono was the object of hostility, seen by many bewildered Beatles fans as the interloper who had “stolen” Lennon from the group. The retrospectives bring to surface the significant cultural contributions of Yoko Ono, drawing attention to her enduring impact despite the challenges she faced. The retrospective at Tate Modern seeks to showcase her accomplishments and position her as a trailblazing artist whose work extends far beyond her association with John Lennon.
