::: PROJECTS :::

YES YOKO ONO EXHIBIT,SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART,JUNE 22-SEPT 8,2002

(photo by Richard Barnes)

By LYNNE ALMAN

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a relatively new museum,very large and expansive on the inside. The YES Yoko Ono exhibit is on the 4th floor. Visitors have a choice of taking the stairs or elevators,I took the elevator(and it's a fast elevator!). On the 4th floor the doorway to enter the Yoko exhibit has a huge photo of Yoko's face on the wall surrounding the exhibit doorway. The exhibit fills 4 large rooms + 5 small rooms. It is presented chronologically,starting with Yoko's early work,and ending with works completed recently. It is truly a retrospective,spanning Yoko's 50+ years career,and also covering all aspects of her work: instruction pieces,writings,film, music,drawings,etc. The works are so varied that there is much to do and see in the exhibit,and there are things to interest everyone,even children. Many of the pieces are interactive,and the viewer is invited to participate. Others are not physically interactive,but the viewer is invited to complete the work in their mind. These can be the most fun of all,because the possibilities are endless with no limitations.

It would be impossible for me to list all of the works included in this exhibit,so I will discuss briefly some of the ones I enjoyed the most:

• AMAZE- This is a large clear plexiglass maze,8 x 16 x 16 feet. Only 2 people are allowed into it at a time,and shoes must be removed. This piece brings so much joy to everyone! I not only had fun participating in the maze,but I stood by it for about 30 minutes watching others do the maze. It was so much fun to watch this piece bring joy to others,and I almost couldn't stop watching! Children especially loved it,even when they would bump into the clear walls. And they had the perfect museum security guard guarding & controlling the maze,he was so friendly & jovial,and he was laughing almost the whole time that I was standing by the maze. At the middle of the maze there is a toilet,which I sat on(and this made the security guard laugh). I didn't see anyone else other than me sit on the toilet.
• FILM NO.4(BOTTOMS)- There are 3 small rooms where Yoko's films are shown on large screens. One room has Cut Piece,another has Fly,and a third one has Film No.4(Bottoms). I had seen all of these films before but had not seen them on a large screen,and for me the most powerful one on the large screen was Bottoms. Bottoms can only be fully appreciated with a large screen viewing! Bottoms is a film that is an extremely close shot of 365 different bottoms,both male and female. The people in the film are walking on a treadmill,so the bottoms are moving. The bottoms are filmed so closly that the whole screen is filled with the bottom and the backs of the thighs,giving a perspective that we don't normally see! The soundtrack is a recording of the participant's conversations,but the museum did not have it turned up loud enough,and it was very hard for me to hear it. The film is mesmerizing,intriguing,whimsical,and brilliant! As with all of her work,in this film Yoko is opening a door for us to see the world around us in a new way.
• TELEPHONE PIECE- This is a telephone that only Yoko has the phone number for. If it rings,the person who answers it gets to speak to Yoko,and Yoko will call randomly,at any time of day,just whenever the mood strikes her. I walked up to the phone and saw a woman talking on the phone,so I naturally assumed she was talking to Yoko,since supposedly Yoko is the only person with the phone number. The woman kept saying to the person on the other end of the phone "You can't be Yoko Ono",and I thought she was just in a state of disbelief and that it was,in fact,Yoko. But when she hung up the phone she said it was a man,and then someone else standing there said the man had also called earlier,so it was someone who had somehow gotten the number,and was playing practical jokes. It's really too bad,because it ruins the whole piece. How unfair for someone to hear the phone ring,and answer it,only to find out it's not Yoko!
• PLAY IT BY TRUST- Play It By Trust is an all-white chess set,all of the pieces and all of the board squares are white. It's really beautiful to look at,and the way it forces us to trust one another is such a positive message. There are 2 versions of this piece in the exhibit. In one area there are 2 Play It By Trust sets,that we are allowed to touch and play. In another area,there is a second version of Play It By Trust that is not to be touched,and I think this is the more attractive of the two. Rather than being on a small table with 2 chairs,this version is a long white table about 20 feet long,with 10 all-white chess sets built into the table and 10 white solid tall-back chairs on each side. It's really amazing to look down the length of this table. It's a very potent piece,very majestic.
• FRANKLIN SUMMER DRAWINGS- These are recent drawings that Yoko did from 1995-1999. Each drawing is approx. 15 x 11 inches,framed,and there are 72 of them all grouped closely together covering one wall. These drawings are so wonderful! I wish I had had more time to look at them,I could spend the better part of a day just looking at these. There is much to be seen in these,some are whimsical,some sexual,some microbial,some mask-like even. There was one in particular that,to me,looked like an ape-face mask,and my eyes kept being drawn to that face. And the face was not scary at all,but very intriguing,it drew me in. We each see different things in these abstract drawings,which is the wonder of them,that they can mean so many different things to different people. Most of the drawings have rounded shapes,and this is what I like best about them. I've always been attracted to round shapes. Circles are somehow comforting,they're finite and at the same time infinite,they convey a feeling of closure while seeming to go on and on. Rounded shapes are not jagged,they won't hurt you,they're soft(and safe). And that's what these Franklin Summer Drawings feel like to me- safe,comforting,and reassuring.
• SKY TV- This is a TV set that shows only the sky above the museum. I love the way this piece forces us to actually look at and focus on the sky,no buildings or even trees,just sky and an occasional bird. It really slows down the mind.
• WISH TREE- Wish Tree is a living Ficus tree about 7 feet tall. There are instructions inviting the viewer to write down their wish on a supplied white tag and tie the wish onto a tree branch. By the end of opening day the tree was already very heavy with wishes and drooping,I wonder if some of the wishes are removed every few days? If not,the tree won't make it through the first week without falling over or without branches breaking off! It's nice that so many people were participating!
• APPLE- This piece is a fresh green apple on a clear plexiglass stand,but what I liked about it is that every time I looked at the apple it had more and more bites taken out of it! So the piece was always evolving. I don't know if museum patrons were sneaking bites,or if museum workers had been told to bite the apple. When I first saw the apple during the media preview it had no bites,a few hours later it had 2 bites,and the next day it had 6 bites! Maybe the museum workers were just getting hungry. ;-)
• BOX OF SMILE- Box Of Smile is a sterling silver box,approximately 2 1/2 inches square that has a mirror on the bottom of the box-you provide the smile! This has always been one of my favorite Yoko Ono pieces,it is so simple and yet so profound. Its message is pure positivity,and how wonderful to have a piece that HAS to make the viewer smile! To me,this is the quintessential Yoko piece. It conveys her sense of humor,her postive attitude,her creative mind,and her desire to make others happy. It is just PURE YOKO.
• MIND BOX- What a different box from Box Of Smile this is! But no less profound. This is one of Yoko's bronze works from 1988. It is a 4 x 8 x 10 inches bronze box with closed lid,with red pigment oozing out of the lid,and down the sides of the box. This piece represents our painful memories and our sad feelings,leaking out from where we keep them locked away.
• CLEANING PIECE- Cleaning Piece is a large mound of smooth round river stones,and the viewer is invited to move a stone onto one of 2 other piles,one marked Joy and one marked Sorrow. I picked up a stone,and then I had a moment of hesitation and confusion. If I added it to the Sorrow pile,was I cleaning my psyche of some of its sorrow,or was I,in fact,reinforcing the idea of sorrow with the physical act of placing the stone and building the Sorrow pile? I thought it over for a few minutes and then placed it in the Joy pile,I didn't want to risk any chance of adding to sorrow,either my own,or the world's.
• FORGET IT- Forget It is a 3 1/4 inch long needle mounted on a plexiglass stand,with the needle pointed upwards,with the words "Forget It" on the stand. To me this piece is a reminder for me to forget whatever thoughts/emotions are pricking and poking at me. It's another one of Yoko's positive messages: that for our health and happiness we need to let go of our pain/hurt/anger.

Yoko's art is truly a gift. She opens my mind,and then fills it with positivity and humor. Her art forces me to slow my mind,and to really stop and see the world around me,and to notice what I'm feeling. Yoko's art has that rare combination of creativity,intelligence,humor,and positive message that makes it stand out. Her work commands respect,and places her as one of the seminal figures of the Conceptual Art Movement. And for me,the bottom line is how her work makes me feel,and it makes me feel great!!