YOKO ONO: IMAGINE PEACE at JEMA, Belfast, U.K.
April, 2008
For the month of April, the John Erickson Museum of Art (JEMA) is in Belfast, U.K. and we are proud to travel Yoko Ono's IMAGINE PEACE exhibition to Golden Thread Gallery, Flaxart Studios, and other venues in Belfast. Yoko Ono's exhibition at JEMA includes her text-based work IMAGINE PEACE (2007) as well as WISH PIECE (1996).
Viewers are invited to attend JEMA's new outdoor sculpture garden and contribute to two of Ono's Wish Trees by writing wishes on provided pieces of paper and adding them to the branches of the trees. In time, all wishes will be gathered and sent to The IMAGINE PEACE TOWER on Videy Island, Reykjavik, Iceland.
In a 2007 interview with Forrest Reda from Jambase:
Q: What is the state of the peace movement now? How does it compare to the 1960s and 1970s?
Yoko Ono: In those days we were waving flags, so it was clear that something was going on. But now, I think people are doing it in a different way. They are not waving flags, but they really visualizing peace, and I think it's going to work out.
People are saying, 'Isn't there more to do than just IMAGINING PEACE?' But look what's happening now. Think about it, even on a logical level, when you are IMAGINING PEACE, you can't be angry or you can't be violent. I think [the idea] 'IMAGINE PEACE' is pretty strong...you can't be sad or resentful or attacking somebody when you are just IMAGINING PEACE.
In her 2007 interview with Jambase:
Q: Describe the differences she sees in personal liberties in the United States in the 2000's with George Bush, compared to the 1970s under Richard Nixon.
Yoko
Ono: Anyone can try [to take our personal liberties away] but it's not going to happen because thoughts are really inside us, and they can't control our thoughts.
JEMA featuring Ono's exhibition with its new outdoor sculpture park and two of Ono's Wish Trees. Check out more images in the What's New and Exhibitions section of JEMA for Yoko Ono's IMAGINE PEACE exhibition as it travels through out Belfast.
IMAGINE PEACE
You may think, well, how are we going to get one billion people to think
peace?
Imagine Peace.
Because if one billion people in the world think peace, we will get peace.
Remember each one of us has the power to change the world.
Power works in mysterious ways.
You don't have to do much.
Visualize the domino effect and just start thinking peace.
The message will circulate faster than you think.
It's time for action.
And the action is peace.
Spread the word.
Spread peace.
I love you!
Yoko Ono,
Excerpt from Statement for IMAGINE PEACE Exhibition at JEMA, Belfast, U.K.
Spring 2008.
WISH PIECE
Make a wish.
Write it down on a piece of paper.
Fold it and tie it around a branch of a wish tree.
Ask your friends to do the same.
Keep wishing
Until the branches are covered with wishes.
Yoko Ono, 2007
'I would say all my works are a form of prayer or a wish. And so this is really a wish piece. And people write down their wishes, and then they sort of tie the knot on the tree. There are lines of people who want to do that. So, whenever we have the "Wish Tree" piece, we have to supply maybe three or four or sometimes twenty trees instead of the first one because the one becomes so heavy with [paper] ... it's an incredible amount of ... wishing. I enjoy that piece very much, and I have wishes from people from many different countries now and I'm keeping it all. I am not going to look [at them], I mean it's sacrilegious to look [at them]. Their wish should go from here to there directly, not being interfered or intruded on by me. So, I am collecting all these wishes, and then one day I am going to make a piece that contains all the wishes and it will be very powerful, I think.'
Yoko Ono, Egg Interview
About IMAGINE PEACE TOWER
The IMAGINE PEACE TOWER is a work of art conceived by Yoko Ono in memory of John Lennon.
It is dedicated to peace and bears the inscription 'IMAGINE PEACE' in 24 languages.
Its construction and installation is a collaboration between Yoko Ono, the City of Reykjavik, Reykjavik Art Museum and Reykjavik Energy.
The work is in the form of a wishing well from which a very strong and tall tower of light emerges. The strength, intensity and brilliance of the light tower continually changes as the particles in the air fluctuate with the prevailing weather and atmospheric conditions unique to Iceland.
Every year it will light up between October 9th (Lennon's birthday) and December 8th (the day of his death).
In addition the IMAGINE PEACE TOWER will be lit on New Year's Eve, during the first week of spring and on some rare special occasions agreed between the City and Ono.
Yoko Ono
'An image comes to mind of a white, ideal space that, more than any single picture may be the archetypal image of 20th-century art. And it clarifies itself through a process of historical inevitability usually attached to the art it contains.'
Brian O'Doherty, Inside the White Cube
Welcome to JEMA
Advancements in technology and new ideas in contemporary art are preparing the current visual art audience to witness radically new and diverse exhibition strategies. Ideas associated with Marcel Duchamp's Boite-en-valise (1941), and Brian O'Doherty's Inside the White Cube (1976), have (for decades) provided groundbreaking precedents from which to conceive and approach the display of art. Advancements in internet technology, digital imaging and critical insights related to site-specificity have further expanded possible innovations in art display tactics. As a result, today's exhibition spaces may be planned, constructed, maintained, and enjoyed with unprecedented levels of affordability, efficiency, and creativity.
The John Erickson Museum of Art (JEMA) is an example of one possible method of developing an exciting new venue for artists and viewers. It also functions as a model for discussing innovative possibilities toward the development of vital yet affordable art centers. JEMA's portable quality offers artists an exhibition space that encourages radical experimentation with a low financial overhead. This new museum space is founded on an unwavering belief concerning the quick, decisive and efficient delivering art to the viewing public. This type of activity is an important sign of a vital cultural institution. Many art museums require years to schedule exhibitions. Moving slowly - these institutions function with power and strength but remain bogged down by red tape and expensive exhibitions.
By moving with stealth and agility, JEMA carries out its functions in a portable and thrifty manner. JEMA's design allows for a greater focus on exhibition planning and a stronger intercommunication between the institution, exhibiting artists, and you (the viewing public). JEMA brings the art to you!
Think JEMA... more or less.
YOKO ONO
Yoko Ono is a major contributor to the field of international Conceptual Art. Her early work as part of the international avant-garde and her affiliation with the Fluxus group is filled with diverse groundbreaking work in the areas experimental film, sound art, site-specific works, and performance. Her collaborative activist projects with John Lennon and her keen ability to send political messages through mass media outlets preceded and anticipated the work of many contemporary interventionist artists. In 2000-2001 Yoko Ono's exhibition, Yes, won the International Association of Art Critics/USA Award for Best Museum Show Originating in New York City.
Selected Solo Exhibitions include:
Yoko Ono: Last Supper, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany, August - November 2008.
Yoko Ono: Touch Me, Gallery LeLong, New York, NY, April - May 2008,
Yes, Yoko Ono, SF MOMA, San Francisco, CA. June - September 2002.
Selected Group Exhibitions include:
Bucharest Biennale, Bucharest, Romania, May - June 2008.
WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, P.S.1 MoMA, Video installations, February - May 2008.
Paul McCarthy's Low Life Slow Life Part 1, California College of Art, San Francisco, CA,
Films of Yoko Ono, 7 February 2008 - 12 April 2008.
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Installation view of Yoko Ono's IMAGINE PEACE at JEMA.
Belfast City Hall
A Belfast political mural in a Protestant neighborhood.
At a Peace Wall in Belfast
University of Ulster students adding wishes to Ono's wish tree.
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