Yoko Ono-Cut Piece
Yoko Ono doing the cut piece (she sat on stage, people cut her robes off) in 1961 was scary shit, this was before the second wave really begun, and the fears of violence against women were not discussed very loudly.
That’s what we are supposed to see in it, rape, forced confinement, the history of what men do to women, but that’s too obvious. There is something cryptic in the unveiling maybe its the use of the domestic in public spectacle, perhaps or a freudian longing for the phallic objects, maybe something more then that. The piece hurts because its too simple, too obvious, too staged and then at the end of it, she is naked, shreds of clothing like a halo, she has through the transsubtation of object into art become nude instead of naked.
She is 70 now, living through the Hatred, the Widowhood, the Fame and the Money, conceptualists have taken her back, and her new work has taken the themes of early pieces and moved them to places more somber and more calm. The room of coffins with trees growing out of them that she displayed at Sao Paulo three years ago for example.
3 years ago, as a haha we love you, now fuck off, German students recreated the cut piece with a white goat. 2 years ago Lisa d?Lamour recreated it at Walker Arts in Minneapolis and with in the next 6 months, she returns to Japan so she can recreate the work.
What does it mean now, with the obvious signs of aging and a new critical reception does this.
Is she thanking those who brought her here, is she reminding us that their is work still to be done or is she playing fame games.
Is this necessary, and is it even or right to ask ?