Better Late Than Never: Yoko Ono at the MoMA

John Lennon liked to joke that Yoko Ono was “the world’s most famous unknown artist.” Before she infamously “broke up the Beatles” (but not really), Ono built an internationally recognized career as an artist in the developing fields of Conceptual art, experimental film, and performance art. Unfairly famous then and now for all the wrong reasons, Ono’s long fought in her own humorously sly way for recognition, beginning with her self-staged 1971 “show” Museum of Modern (F)art, a performance piece in which she dreamed of a one-woman exhibition of her work at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Now, more than 40 years later, the MoMA makes that dream come true with the exhibition Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960–1971. Better late than never, this exhibition of the pre-Lennon and early-Lennon Ono establishes her not just as the world’s most famous unknown artist, but the most unfairly unknown one, too. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Better Late Than Never: Yoko Ono at the MoMA."

Like a Rolling Stone: Was 1965 the Most Revolutionary Year in Music?

What do “Yesterday,” “Satisfaction,” “My Generation,” “The Sound of Silence,” “California Girls,” and “Like a Rolling Stone” all have in common? They were all hits in 1965, the year author Andrew Grant Jackson calls “the most revolutionary year in music.” In 1965: The Most Revolutionary Year in Music, Jackson weaves a fascinating narrative of how popular music and social change influenced one another to create a year memorable not only for great music, but also for great progress in American culture. In this whirlwind tour of multiple genres of music as well as multiple pressing political issues, Jackson states a compelling case for 1965 as a key turning point in American music and society as well as provides a mirror for how music and society interact today, 50 years later. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Like a Rolling Stone: Was 1965 the Most Revolutionary Year in Music?"

Is Performance Art the New Religion?

According to a Pew Research study, if you count people who change from one type of Protestantism to another, “44% of American adults have either switched religious affiliation, moved from being unaffiliated with any religion to being affiliated with a particular faith, or dropped any connection to a specific religious tradition altogether.” This “very competitive religious marketplace” promises to only get more competitive, as percentages of young people either unaffiliated with a faith or totally unaffiliated being even higher. Why are these people taking their faith to the marketplace? What are they looking for? Is it some kind of different or higher experience? With the stir surrounding Marina Abramović’s current performance art piece, Marina Abramović: 512 Hours at the Serpentine Gallery in London, England, being described frequently as a “religious experience,” is it possible that performance art—the most often ridiculed, poorly understood, but perhaps most vibrant art form today—could be the new religion? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Is Performance Art the New Religion?"

Imagining Peace This Holiday Season

This holiday season, perhaps more than any other recent holiday season, the greatest gift we can ask for is peace. Thanks to Yoko Ono’s IMAGINE PEACE (photo above), a synchronized video program on 15 of the largest digital screens in New York City’s Times Square running each night through the rest of 2012 just before midnight, that dream of peace takes visible form, at least for a few fleeting moments.  John Lennon’s song “Imagine” calls for a pie-in-the-sky dream of peace and harmony, but what are the holidays for if not for imagining a world better than it is right now? Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Imagining Peace This Holiday Season."

[Image: Yoko Ono’s IMAGINE PEACE, featured nightly at 11:57 pm until midnight every night throughout December 30 as part of the Times Square Moment: A Digital Gallery, a presentation of the Times Square Advertising Coalition (TSAC) and Times Square Arts. Photo by Ka-Man Tse.]

How Yoko Ono Is Still Giving Peace a Chance

Long before she ever met John Lennon, Yoko Ono established herself as a significant international avant-garde artist. With John by her side, Yoko’s political performance art found a larger audience to witness the "Bed-In for Peace" and Bagism. Alas, the idealism of the late 1960s that helped foster an environment for that activism faded during the Reagan years and has struggled ever since. Fortunately, the renaissance of activism known as Occupy Wall Street has inspired Ono to reach out and inspire once more. On Saturday, January 14^th, Yoko Ono and members of the OWS Arts and Culture and Occupy With Art groups will gather in the now famous Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan to announce a new artwork to promote peace worldwide. Forty-three years after singing “Give Peace a Chance” with her husband John, Yoko Ono is still giving peace a chance, and asking us to join her. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "How Yoko Ono Is Still Giving Peace a Chance."

[Many thanks to Occupy With Art for providing me with the image above.]