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YES Yoko Ono
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Press Conference, Friday, 2PM
Transcribed By Marsha Ewing
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Photo
© 2001 Tom Ewing |
"I had this strong feeling and belief of myself, that I’m an outsider and I think being an outsider to the society is a very strong position to be in. An outsider can really be objective, and also bring some ideas that cannot blossom within the society." - Yoko Ono
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Photo
© 2001 Tom Ewing |
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YOKO PRESS CONFERENCE,
WALKER ART CENTER, MARCH 9, 2001
Introductions by Kathy
Halbreich, Walker Art Center Director
Ms.Halbreich:
(After the four participants have walked down the stairs through the
audience and to the stage)
"We decided
it was appropriate to come in the main entrance. (Laughter) I’m
Kathy Halbreich, Director of the Walker Art Center, and I have the
enormous pleasure to welcome three friends home.
I think the last time Yoko was here was in 1993, along with Jon
Hendricks and Alexandra Munroe who were the curators of this exhibition,
but all three participated in the ground-breaking Fluxus exhibition that
Joan Rothfuss and Liz Armstrong brought to the Twin Cities and to the
nation. It’s also my
pleasure to tell you a little bit about Jon and Alexandra and Joan who
will tell you all about Yoko and Yoko will tell you t hat which they
don’t. We know that you really don’t want to hear from us so
much as Yoko so of course there’ll be time for questions.
"Alexandra Munroe is the Director of the Japan Society Gallery and
the curator of the exhibition, Yes Yoko Ono in consultation with Fluxus
scholar, Jon Hendricks. I
first went to Japan in 1985 and most of my colleagues told me at that time
that there was no such thing as modern or contemporary Japanese art.
So it’s really my great pleasure to introduce the woman who
changed the Western mind and that would be Alexandra,
a wonderful historian and connoisseur of Japanese art.
She is recognized internationally for her landmark publications and
exhibitions which really helped to make visible in the West, where not all
is known, the extensive field of modern Asian art.
Her introductory essay for Yes Yoko Ono catalog explores Ono’s
life, her relationship to the international avant-garde in America, Japan
and aspects of her art and thought that have guided her enormously
prolific and intelligent production over the last four decades.
"The exhibition Yes Yoko Ono, I’m amazed to say, the artist’s
first major American retrospective, makes its first stop on a national
tour at the Walker. It
received wide critical acclaim when it premiered at the Japan Society
Galleries in October 2000.
"The exhibition features approximately 150 works from 1960 to the
present, with a focus on Ono’s early period. It includes Objects, Installations, language-based works such
as Instruction Pieces and Scores, Film and Video, Music and Performance
Art and probably things that I can’t quite name.
Following its closing at the Walker on June 17, it will travel to Houston,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, Toronto and San Francisco.
"Jon Hendricks is one of the most erudite curators I know. It’s
wonderful to actually go through any gallery with him.
He is also the curator of the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus
collection in Detroit and it’s probably not such a secret hope of mine,
a dream I guess, that perhaps this collection might find its way to
another mid-western city at some point in the future.
He’s renowned for his catalog The Fluxus Codex which was
published in 1988 and while I haven’t weighed it, I think it must weigh
at least 10 pounds. (Note: The book
is over 600 pages) He’s
worked as Yoko Ono’s curator and archivist since 1989 and has
contributed to several important exhibitions of her work.
His study on Yoko and Fluxus in the exhibition catalog offers
insights into her contributions to one of the most radical collectives in
the history of modern art.
"And finally, Joan Rothfuss. Joan’s real devotion is to artists who have challenged the
status quo. To artists who make historically significant work out of
everyday things, to artists who disrupt gently, allowing us to stop long
enough to think and feel. A
remarkable attribute in this digital age.
She has really enjoyed the opportunity to work with Alexandra, Jon
and Yoko and the simple fact is, we all have.
"It’s a great honor for me to say “Yes” to a woman who has
taught us all the power of the affirmative.
With that, I will turn it over to Alexandra."
ALEXANDRA MUNROE:
"This is the first opening of a six-city tour – actually, Miami has
tapped on as well – and we might also take the show to Japan and Korea
where there is enormous interest following its New York premiere this
fall. It is significant
because the Walker has played a very special role in the conception and
development of this show.
"Joan’s pioneering Fluxus exhibition was among the first efforts to
recognize Yoko Ono’s seminal contributions to the history of the
international avant-garde. And
it was here in these galleries that I first saw many of the Objects that
became central to Yes Yoko Ono. It
was from the inception of this project that Jon Hendricks and I knew that
we had to get Joan onboard somehow.
"The catalog is the most comprehensive book ever published on Yoko
Ono’s thought and art and I’m pleased to say, it is the most
comprehensive book ever produced on a single Asian artist.
Past or present. As you all know, it includes a fantastic CD of new recordings
by Yoko, so be sure to go home and check those out.
"Just a few words on the concept and really the ideas and if I may be
so bold as to say the aim of this exhibition. The first is to explore
Yoko’s seminal, original, creative force in the international movements
of Fluxus and conceptual art and in originating certain forms and styles
of avant-garde music, film and performance art. Many that we associate
indeed the very 60’s aesthetic with, but the show also travels us
through Yoko’s work of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
Secondly, very important for myself as an Asianist and for Japan
Society as the organizer of this show, and I think it was a welcome idea
for Yoko also to explore and for Jon, to look at Yoko’s art as a
transmitter of Asian thought to the international avant-garde of the late
50’s and 60’s as a kind of medium, a kind of catalyst for a very
specific East Asian practices and philosophies of art.
The use of chance, the use of language and poetics, the very
performative and ritual aspect of her participation pieces and indeed, the
core idea of art as being something to be completed in your mind.
"It is now my great honor and pleasure to introduce Yoko and to take
questions from the audience."
QUESTIONS FOR YOKO FROM THE MEDIA:
Q: You have described art in the last few years as the age of solidity
and commodity. Could you elaborate on that?
Q:
What’s the follow-up for your art?
Y:
I think that it’s almost unhealthy for us to try to look into the future
that way. By doing that, we kind of limit the future. I really like to
keep it open, as an open book and anything could happen. My feeling is
that it should be an open book , but with an open mind and open
brains…expanding our wisdom, expanding our understanding of the world.
It’s getting very important for all of us in a sense that the complexity
of society is getting so heavy now, unless we quickly try to match our
wisdom to what is happening in the society, we might even destroy
ourselves. And so there’s
an incredible demand for us to become wiser. And I hope that’s what’s
gonna happen. If it doesn’t, we’re going to perish.
Q: What does it feel like for someone like yourself who started with
the avant-garde movement in the 50’s, 60’s..who started on the
fringes, perhaps, to now have achieved mainstream success in 2001?
Q:
Is there any difference as an artist, as being someone who is not very
well known, to someone who very well-known?
You can’t be anonymous. Does
that affect your work?
Q: Can you tell us anything about the specific works that we’ll see
in the show?
Q: How do you explain the motivation behind having a show?
Y:
Are you talking in abstract or about this particular show in the Walker
Gallery?
(Kathy
Halbreich) We didn’t give her a chance to decline. (Laughter)
Y: I was very honored and very happy that they thought of doing a show
of my work.
Q: (IK!'s Keri Wilson) Ureshii tanjobi!
Y: Thank you. (Explains to the rest of us) Happy birthday.
Q:
What traditional Japanese arts and artists influenced you?
Y:
Hmmm. I don’t think I was
influenced so much by artists per se. I think that I was extremely
influenced by Zen Buddhism and the way of the warriors. I consider myself
a warrior and I read so many books on Japanese warriors and they just
fascinated me. The way they
moved and the way they survived and the way they planned things, it’s
just, in a way, that’s something that I learned of life. That was the
way I learned about life itself.
Q: (Keri's Follow-up Question) Do you have any interest in Japanese manga?
(Kathy Halbreich):
For those of you who might be confused about what manga might look
like in a gallery, after you look at Yoko’s show, there’s a painting
show and there’s a young Japanese artist by the name of Murakami
in it, in the other galleries and Murakami is in fact, one of those young
Japanese artists who have drawn extensively from manga at the same time
connecting it to nihonga painting, a rather traditional way of making
marks.
Y:
Ah, beautiful.
Q: Optimism is such a prevailing message in your
art. Do you hope to have that optimism sent out through your art to
the universe to the viewer and have some effect, or is it just your own
optimism that you're expressing?
Y: I think artists are usually communicating. When they create something,
they perceive that those creations would definitely communicate to other
people and the ideas and the knowledge that you received would communicate
to people automatically. I think that's what the role of the artist
is. I don't think that they're just talking to the mirror. My
optimism has been discussed many times and sometimes criticized for being
naive, but I feel the only reason that I insist on optimism is only
because I'm totally pessimistic. The only way that I can save myself
- and that's related to the world as well - the only way that we can save
ourselves is to have that ray of hope and try to create a future through
it. And that's how I feel about it.
My Mother once told me this interesting story, in the big earthquake in
the 30's, there was this woman friend of hers, and this woman with her
very young daughter looked around after the earthquake and there was not
one place in the sky that was not red, because it was all on fire. The
Japanese houses were all wood so it was very easy to quickly burn. There
was just one little blue spot in the sky, and she thought, "I'm going
to get there." And that's how she was saved. She saved herself
and her daughter. That's how I feel about ourselves, that we're going to
follow that one blue spot.
Q: Would you care to share something from your
current life that makes your heart dance?
Y: (Rolls eyes up) Oh, current life, ohh. (Laughter) My life is
getting, I think it's kind of an expected thing, and I think you can
imagine, too, but it's getting less free. Less and less. It
has actually become like that, so I have to find to really create a
situation where my heart will dance. In other words, I don't go to
the disco and feel good about it! (Laughter) I don't think I
can just go there anonymously.
I started to learn - well, this is an old trick, because I used to love
this anyway when I was very young - I started to l earn that very little
things can really make your heart dance, like looking at the sky and
knowing that the sky has a little shine or looking at the park when all
the trees are still frozen, but then you see that some trees are budding
and you almost sense spring coming. There's something marvelous about it
because it's the sign of life, that life is continuing. And that's
the kind of thing that my heart dances for.
Q: When you create now, what are your themes?
Y: I never think of a theme. I allow my mind to be kind of empty so
that things can come in easily and I get inspired, a lot of inspiration
goes through my mind and I feel it's very important that I bring them out
and share them with you. That's my concept.
Q: How do you think young people will perceive your
art?
Y: I don't think who's going to look at my work and how they're going to
react. It'd be nice if they get something out of it. When I'm
creating things, when I'm performing or at home just creating things, I'm
always dealing with communication, with the subconscious. I think when I'm
performing on the stage, I think I'm performing to gods and goddesses
within you, so I can't think in terms of communicating whether to teenager
or somebody who's older. There's no age, there's no time, it's just
communicating on that level, cell to cell.
Q: I wonder since their are so many women in the audience today, what
words of encouragement, having done so many extraordinary things under
sometimes very difficult conditions, what you might say to them.
Y: I think that to know that you can survive, and to have faith in
yourself. I think that maybe to men, I'd like to say, listen to others as
well, but to women I'd like to say, don't listen to them, listen to
yourself (laughter). And the reason is because so many things are said to
women or for women that are just simply not true. We get tricked by
it. So many things that society told me that I simply ignored that
when I look at that, and observe that in hindsight, I'm glad that ignored
them.
Q: (From an art student) What can a young artist do
to struggle through the fog of today's world as opposed to the 50's and
60's era?
Y: I really think we don't have to think in terms of 50's as opposed to
2001. I think that as human race, it's not just meant to get up in the
morning, find food, eat and work around and then go to sleep. That's not
enough for us. Then there's such as a thing as culture that we created. I
think the reason we created culture is it was very necessary for us. For
our minds, our well-being, for our survival. I think that culture does
change, does develop and progress, does expand. I think the reason for
that is because our society does. The demands of our society and how we
respond to that within that situation becomes very important for us to
have art. And the art is of that period, basically, it is how we survive
in life in that moment. And so definitely if you express yourself and feel
that that is so important for you to do at the time, I think that will be
very important for other people as well.
Q: Do you have a sense of fulfillment that there is so much interactive
art in the world today?
Y: I don't necessarily think that they have to actively participate in my
art or anybody else's art. I think that people are getting more and
more interested in actively experiencing art, whether it is their own or
others'. They have a choice and that's a very good thing. It almost has to
do with world peace. When I was thinking that world peace was very
important, there were only about 20 people thinking that and they were
handing out brochures that most people couldn't read (laughter), now I
think that the concept of world peace is a normal one, and likewise, art
too, in the old days when we were artists, we felt pretty special, but now
I think most people are participating in some kind of artistic activity
and that's very good. That's how our society's changing in away. Even with
guitars. When the bands were playing in the 60's, there were very few
people who played guitars, and now most children in schools know how to
play guitars, so it's a very different society now.
Kathy Halbreich: Jon, do you want to say anything?
Jon Hendricks: She said it all. (To Yoko) No,
I think you explained it very well.
Q: As an artist, how do balance the time you need to create with
exposure to other art? Do you listen to other music and explore or
other artists' work?
Y: I like to listen to my voice inside rather than going out and
looking around because that's how I was, I've been, but especially
nowadays I think in terms of whether I would have so many lifetimes. Maybe
another nine lives? I feel that I want to do as much as I can now,
so consequently, I'm sort of insulated from the outside in that sense, and
I'm just concentrating on working.
(The press is now invited to the installation for a walk-through)
