Yoko Ono Interview, 1968, with Tony Elliot
John Whelan
http://pers-www.wlv.ac.uk/~fa1871/yoko.html
Yoko Ono
1968 Interview with Tony Elliot, from Time
Out Magazine
Yoko Ono: a reputation as diffuse and diverse as the
things she does. She will be remembered by most for
her 'bottoms' film, cherished by others for her kite flying
or her 'Painting to let the evening light go through'. Like
a bee she never rests in one place, disseminating her
pollen, nurturing the conception of her ideas and attitudes
in others before flying elsewhere to begin again.
Her biography runs as follows:
Born: bird year
Early childhood: collected skies
Adolescence: gave birth to a grapefruit, collected snails, clouds,
garbage, cans etc. Have graduated many schools specialising
in these subjects.
At present: travelling as a private lecturer of the above subjects
and others; recipient of Hal Kaplow Award. She is a composer,
artist, poet, creator of events and philosopher. She has made films;
thirty minute studies of the striking of a match, the blinking of an eye,
the movement of a smile. 'Number four' was about bottoms.
Her works include an all white chess set and 'A painting to be
stepped on'. She has had various exhibitions with exhibits including
an unfinished painting added to by each visitor and a totally white
room called 'The Blue Room Event'. Recently she held a thirteen-day-
long dance festival, taking place 'in your mind'.
'People think that I'm doing something shocking and ask me if I'm
trying to shock people. The most shocking thing to me is that people
have war, fight with each other and moreover take it for granted. The
kind of thing I'm doing is almost too simple. I'm not interested in
being unique or different. Everyone is different. No two persons have
the same mouth shape for example, and so without making any effort
we're all different. The problem is not how to become different or
unique, but how to share an experience, how to be the same almost,
how to communicate.
'Basically I am interested in communication and therefore
participation of everybody. I'm just part of the participation and
the thing to participate should be basically a mind sort of thing. I
can express it in any medium, just as you use water in everything for
cooking.
'I'm on the stage usually and asking people to come and fly or
something. I don't fly. I'm just sitting there and watching them fly.
I might bring out huge very high ladders and ask people to fly off
them. They can jump off the middle, they don't have to go from the
top. Part of my pieces is imaginary. There are many people who
don't actually jump off, but they do so in a way, because they see
the ladder and see themselves go up there and jump off.
'All my pieces are white because I think that white is the only
colour that allows imaginary colour to be put on. In the Lisson
Gallery I'm going to have a one room environment that's called 'The
Blue Room Event'. The room is completely white and you're
supposed to stay in the room until it becomes blue.
'I consider my shows, and especially this one, like giving an
elephant's tail. When a blind man says "what's an elephant", you
lead the man to an elephant and let him grasp the tail and say "that's
an elephant". The existing material in the gallery is like an elephant's
tail and the larger part is in your mind. But you have to give a tail
to lead into it. The thing is to promote a physical participation
that will lead you into this larger area of mind.
'I think that art is good just as anything is good in a sense that
it's better if anything happens than nothing. So what I'm trying to
do is make something happen by throwing a pebble into the water
and creating ripples. It's like starting a good motion. I don't want to
control the ripples and everything.
'When I made the bottoms film, people said why don't you make one
where you not only make them walk but run as well, or include the
part where they take off their pants. These are good variations. But
I have so many ideas that I can't afford to get hung up on
variations. All I do is give an elephant's tail, the inkling of the
thing, the basic format, and then after that people can do it
themselves. My things tend to be just basic. Somehow I feel the
natural trend today is not to be just basic, but decorative as well.
I have friends where everything is rainbow coloured and when they
come here they ask why everything is white.
'The white chess set is a sort of life situation. Life is not all
black and white, you don't know what is yours and what is theirs. You
have to convince people what is yours. In the chess situation it is
simple if you are black then black is yours. But this is like a life
situation, where you have to play it by convincing each other.'
'Cut Piece' — a Yoko Ono event - involved an audience who cut off
pieces of Yoko's clothing while she sat calmly on stage. 'It was a
form of giving, giving and taking. It was a kind of criticism against
artists, who are always giving what they want to give. I wanted
people to take whatever they wanted to, so it was very important to
say you can cut wherever you want to.
'It is a form of giving that has a lot to do with Buddhism. There's a
small allegorical story about Buddha. He left his castle with his
wife and children and was walking towards a mountain to go into
meditation. As he was walking along, a man said that he wanted
Buddha's children because he wanted to sell them or something. So
Buddha gave him his children. Then someone said he wanted
Buddha's wife and he gave him his wife. Someone calls that he is
cold, so Buddha gives him his clothes. Finally a tiger comes along
and says he wants to eat him and Buddha lets the tiger eat him. And
in the moment the tiger eats him, it became enlightened or something.
That's a form of total giving as opposed to reasonable giving like
"logically you deserve this" or "I think this is good, therefore I am
giving this to you."
'There was an event that I did for a programme on Japanese
television. I just went out into the street and gave away flowers.
They thought it was pretty stupid. The other happening makers on the
programme did very surrealistic, fantastic dramatic things, "very
meaningful" things and there I was just giving out flowers.
'The happening is like a theatrical thing, where you use people to do
things that are like abstract theatre and that have nothing to do
with spontaneity and experience. A good example is an event I did in
New York, where people had to get into a small bag, take their
clothes off inside and contemplate. There was this very beautiful
dancer, who was in a very in-crowd, and who was very used to doing
happenings and things like that. She went into the room and in just
two minutes dashed out and said 'I did get into the bag and I thought
of taking my clothes off. Then I suddenly realized that there was no
point in taking my clothes off because no-one would see me anyway'.
So in a happening you're always being an exhibitionist in a way.
That's typical of a happening maker because she didn't have that
personal urge.
'I'm very social conscious. when I make a painting I just don't want
to leave it at home. I think it has to evade all the phases of life.
The ultimate goal for me is a situation in this society, where
ordinary housewives visiting each other and waiting in the living
room will say, "I was just adding some circles to your beautiful de
Kooning painting", or "I was just adding some colour to your Peter
Blake." There's this strange false value that people create on art
work. Art should be almost free like water and light.
'Television was going to do something on the dance festival. I went
there and said that the first instruction is breathing. Breathe and
do it in any way you want to. The television people got very upset.
They wanted something more visual.
'If anybody wrote in, they just sent some flowers. Others thought I
got a lot of pounds out of it. I received letters saying that they
didn't mind if I was an eccentric, but would I keep it to myself and
not ask a pound for my nonsense? I'm not asking for a pound even.
Flowerwise a pound's worth of flowers could mean just one flower. The
point is that it is very nice to do the thing together. I usually
wake up at dawn just to watch the sky or breathe. This time, I
thought maybe some other people are breathing with me. It goes on to
the thirteenth day and the instruction is then that you're the best.
I just can't wait until the thirteenth day comes.
'I think that gradually many of the hippies will turn their backs on
me. I don't believe in limited turning on like LSD. They think that's
the only turning on there is. I believe that there are ways of
turning on like walking barefoot in the park or dancing in the
wind. 'This swinging age is now in its beginning stage, like in jazz
where you had hot and cool jazz. The hot jazz first and then the cool
jazz. It's terribly hot now and I hope it will soon cool off. That's
the way I want to go. I am dealing with the age I hope will come.'
-- end of article.
Mister Charlie
"John Whelan" <an...@freenet.carleton.ca> wrote in message
news:9mnohm$kr6$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca...