Yoko Ono
Dream Come True
06.24—
10.31.2016

Conferencia inaugural

06.24—_10.31.2016
Opening: June 23rd, 7PM
Curators: Agustín Pérez Rubio and Gunnar B. Kvaran
Gallery 5. Level 2 and other spaces around the city

This is the first retrospective of artist Yoko Ono (Tokyo, 1933)—an essential figure in conceptual and participatory contemporary art—to be held in Argentina. The show includes over eighty works, among them objects, videos, films, installations, sound pieces, and recordings produced from the early sixties through the present. The cornerstone of the show is the Instructions Pieces, which Ono has been working on for over fifty years. The artist will travel to Buenos Aires in June to attend the opening.

Through her works, Ono has created an array of relationships with viewers, inviting them to play an active role in her art’s creative process. She uses a clear language to produce objects, events, rituals, and actions that are consummated, both materially and mentally, by the audience.

Simple and poetic messages, the “instructions” invite viewers to perform certain actions. They formulate questions about the conceptual basis of the work of art, viewers’ participation in its material production, the ephemeral, and the desanctification of the art object.

The exhibition project contains two discrete instances: the show itself in MALBA’s galleries and the exhibition and communication of many works in the public space (signs, buses, billboards), the mass media (newspapers, magazines, radio, and television), and the social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr), where Ono is also a point of reference.

Yoko Ono

Tokyo, Japan, 1933; she lives and works in New York.

Born to a traditional Japanese family, she spent her childhood in cities like New York, San Francisco, and Tokyo. From a very young age, she was given a musical education, studying piano and voice. She was the first woman admitted to the philosophy program at Gakushuin University in Japan. She later received a degree in poetry and contemporary composition from Sarah Lawrence College. In 1961, she began working in conceptual and participatory art, avant-garde music, experimental film, and performance. Her work aroused the interest of important figures like Peggy Guggenheim, Marcel Duchamp, and George Maciunas. She has done collaborative projects with artists like Nam June Paik and the Fluxus group. In 1964, she published Grapefruit, her mythical book of instructions. In 1966, she met John Lennon, who became her life partner as well as the co-author of a series of performances, films, and musical pieces. She was increasingly connected to pop music and, with Lennon, she formed the band Plastic Ono Band. After Lennon’s death, Ono was in mourning for a number of years during which she produced music and videos related to her sense of loss. Solo shows of her work include Paintings and Drawings by Yoko Ono, AG Gallery, New York (1961); Sogetsu Art Center, Tokyo (1962), Yoko at Indica Gallery, London (1966); This is not Here, the Everson Museum of Arts, Syracuse (1971); documenta 5, Kassel (1972); Yoko Ono: Objects, Films, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1989); En Trance Ex it, Museo de arte Moderno de Buenos Aires (1997); YES Yoko Ono, Japan Society, New York (2000); Yoko Ono Horizontal Memories, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo (2005); the 53^rd Venice Biennale (2009); Half a Wind Show, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2014); and Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960-1971, MoMA (2015). Her work forms part of public and private collections around the world. She has recorded a great many solo albums and albums with other artists; she has written many books and others have been written about her work. She was awarded a Grammy in 1982 for the album Double Fantasy recorded with Lennon, the 8^th Hiroshima Art Prize (2011), the Golden Lion at the 53^rd Venice Biennale (2009), the Oskar Kokoshka prize (2012), the Dublin Biennial’s Lifetime Achievement Award (2012), and the Rainer Hildebrandt medal from the Checkpoint Charlie museum in Berlin for her commitment to human rights (2012).