”Love” is the word that sums me up the best,” said Yoko Ono at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art north of Copenhagen where she presented her latest exhibition; a sum up of her earliest works including War Is Over- If You Want It and a wish tree in the garden for guests to hang their wishes on.
“Morning sunbeams” and a beaming Yoko Ono, and outside, her Wish Tree, which by the end of the exhibition had received altogether 2 million wishes..with everything from world peace to children’s toys. Photos Camilla Alfthan
”For years I always heard that when you exhibit in Louisiana you’ve made it. Now I’m finally here. I came straight from the airport instead of going to the hotel to see my installations. It’s a magical place. Coming here, I realize how well space is used. We’re living in a world where there’s less and less space because of money. The way you use space here is beautiful and silent. Silence breathes. In war you break silence. Without silence there’s no peace in the world. In big cities it’s difficult to use space in the right way. Instead of creating space people create things to sell; objects that symbolize money rather than thought and spirit. The spirit is killed. Here, space is very special. It is not killed.”
(How do you manage to keep your work so fresh?) ” I don’t know the answer. Maybe because I care about keeping space in my brain. I don’t want to accumulate a lot of knowledge. I like to keep my brain empty. When it is empty, a lot of inspiration comes to me. I get all the energy and inspiration. I’m giving it back to you. It is a nice kind of circulation. (…) When I was I child in elementary school I was reading a story about a Japanese warrior. There was a picture of him. He said he wanted to take seven years of misery on his body so that the world could live in peace. I thought I wanted to be like him. Then my life was a mess. All sorts of terrible things happened to me. I realized that I’d been praying to be like the warrior. Now I want to be like another Japanese character, who has eight years of happiness and treasures..(…) This body has lived for 80 years. Its a creation of art. You and I have a heart. Our heart beats are the same.”
Yoko Ono is represented by Galerie Lelong in New York
