Tate Modern exhibition looks at pioneering conceptual artist

The South Bank cultural institution has held major exhibitions and retrospectives of many of the world’s most important artists, including Andy Warhol, David Hockney, James Turrell and Yayoi Kusama.

Adding to this list of celebrated artists, the Tate will look at the works of ground-breaking artist Yoko Ono, in Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind.

Yoko Ono, Freedom 1970 (Image: Courtesy the artist)

The Japanese artist’s work spanned conceptual, participatory art, film and performance. She was also a respected musician and campaigner for world peace.

The exhibition will look at Yoko’s seven decade- long practice, tracking the path from her innovative multidisciplinary practice from the mid-1950s to the impact it continues to have on contemporary art.

In doing so, Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind pulls together more than 200 works including instruction pieces and scores, installation, films, music and photography that reveal Yoko’s radical approach to language, art and participation, as well as her poetic and humorous touch.

PEACE is POWER, first realised 2017 on dispay at Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Porto, 2020 (Image: Photo by Filipe Braga)

The exhibition starts by looking at Yoko’s role in experimental avant-garde circles in New York and Tokyo, when she made her instruction pieces – often just one written word – with asked readers to imagine, experience, make or complete the work.

‘WAR IS OVER!’ (if you want it), the billboard campaign Yoko created with her late husband John Lennon will feature, as will works created during her five-year stay in London where she embedded herself within Britain’s network of counter-culture artists (where she met The Beatles musician) such as an installation of halved domestic objects Half-A-Room, created in 1967.

Yoko Ono, Sky TV, 1966 (Image: Photo by Cathy Carver, courtesy of Hirshhorn Museum)

Recent works include the Wish Tree which invites passers-by to continue individual wishes for peace and participatory installation My Mommy Is Beautiful, which features a 15-metre-long wall of canvases to which visitors can attach photos of their mother on to, and share personal messages.

Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind will run February 15, 2024 to September 1, 2024. Tickets are £20/£5 adult/child and are on sale now at tate.org.uk