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Sitting at her kitchen table, sipping green tea, Yoko Ono looks much the same as she did when I met her 20 years ago. Dressed in black and peering intently over tinted spectacles, her face bears little trace of the passing of time and her diminutive form exudes utter calmness. Having crossed the famous threshold of the Dakota building, and been ushered through the interior of possibly the most exclusive address in Manhattan by her assistant, then instructed to leave my shoes at the door, I do feel like I have been granted an audience with a grand historical figure. Which, in a way, I have.<\/p>\n
Having recently turned 80, the woman who was once regarded as a kind of latter-day witch who led John Lennon astray and broke up the Beatles, now occupies a more complex historical position in the pantheon of celebrity. She has been recognized belatedly as a pioneering conceptual artist, a musician and performer in her own right, and an activist in the spirit of her late husband. Her latest causes include campaigning for gun control and against fracking \u2014 the extraction of natural gas by cracking open shale rocks below the Earth\u2019s surface under high pressure. Quiet-spoken, but still outspoken, Ono\u2019s vision remains Utopian and her thinking seems utterly untroubled by the hard facts of contemporary geopolitical reality.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do feel that I am starting a new life at 80,\u201d she says, at one point, \u201ca second life that will have so many things I didn\u2019t have in the first life. I don\u2019t know how long I am going to live, but my prediction is that we will have heaven on Earth in 2050. When I tell people this, they say, \u2018Oh, but you won\u2019t be there,\u2019 and I say, \u2018Well, who knows?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
Before the arrival of heaven on Earth though there is a more pressing commitment: this year\u2019s Meltdown festival, which she is curating, and which takes place in London this month. It will feature various musical pioneers such as Marianne Faithfull, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Siouxsie and Yoko herself, alongside contemporary cutting-edge acts such as Cibo Matto, Deerhoof and Immortal Technique.<\/p>\n
What, I ask, was her criterion? \u201cOh, energy. I think energy is the most important thing that we can give to people as performers. Anything else is a little bit pretentious. But energy is not. It\u2019s so direct and so pure that it becomes a kind of freedom. If you don\u2019t have it, don\u2019t bother with rock and roll.\u201d<\/p>\n
Is it hard to find that energy as she enters old age? \u201cWell, as you get older, you realize that you can only do a performance on stage through the energy that is inside you. You transform yourself. I find that so interesting. I think that there is a sort of spiritual power that is translating into our bodies as we perform. Performers give and giving is so important. It can heal. That is my experience anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meltdown will also have talks, lectures, workshops and discussions, one devoted to activism, including a debate linked to the publication of a book of artists\u2019 work in support of Pussy Riot, and one concerned with the digital future. \u201cI think this is the beginning of a time of big change,\u201d she says confidently. \u201cThe \u201960s were very sweet in a way, but things are more urgent now because we really do have to get on with it. Time is running out for the planet. The only option is do something or do nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n
How would she describe her politics? \u201cWell, I believe in people. People change things. And I am against negativity in all its forms. I think we should be discovering and inventing things that help the human race, not that damage the planet. By now, we should have realized this is what is needed, no? The future is now. We can\u2019t wait for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
I ask Yoko why she has embraced the anti-fracking cause, becoming, alongside Lady Gaga and Susan Sarandon, the most visible spokesperson for Artists Against Fracking. She has made a TV ad about the dangers of the process, addressed to New York\u2019s Gov. Andrew Cuomo, to the soundtrack of John Lennon\u2019s \u201cGimme Some Truth.\u201d And, with her son, Sean, and some famous friends, she has recorded the folksy, protest song, \u201cDon\u2019t Frack My Mother.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell I\u2019m getting bashed for it, but I have to speak out, it\u2019s so potentially bad. These big gas corporations have so much money and they think that gives them the power to do whatever they want. They are going to put strong chemicals in the water and that water is going to splash all over the place. In Pennsylvania, already some people are getting cancer and the corporations are saying, \u2018Oh there\u2019s no proof.\u2019 The usual. All the wells have no clean water now. You can show that. The water is cloudy. And people who are not rich, they cannot afford to buy clean water every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
She continues in a conspiratorial whisper. \u201cWhen I speak out against the guns or against the big corporations, some of my friends say, \u2018Oh Yoko, be careful. These people have all the power.\u2019 But, you know, most people don\u2019t speak out because they are frightened. It\u2019s best to have no fear. Plus, I am not going to rest well if I don\u2019t do it. We cannot stay silent, so I ask people to please join me. If a million people stand up, they will have to take notice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yoko has marked her 80th year on Earth in style. Alongside the Meltdown festival, a touring retrospective of her art, titled Half-A-Wind, has just finished in Frankfurt and will travel throughout Europe and the United States in the coming months. A big art book, \u201cInfinite Universe at Dawn,\u201d spanning her long career as an artist, will be published later in the year. She has also just finished a new album and overseen an extensive reissue program of her back catalogue from 1968-85.<\/p>\n
In February, she celebrated her birthday with a Plastic Ono Band concert at the Volksbuhne in Berlin, where the group, which now consists of Sean and sundry friends, was joined on stage by Peaches, Michael Stipe and Rufus, and Martha Wainwright. The show culminated with the arrival of a birthday cake and a chorus of \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d in English and German. The audience of aging hippies and younger art-world hipsters lapped it up, raising the roof with the chorus of \u201cGive Peace A Chance\u201d without the slightest trace of irony or cynicism.<\/p>\n
The concert itself was a curious affair, with the group moving often unsteadily through a selection of songs from her career, while Yoko submerged her more arty side \u2014 there wasn\u2019t much atonal screaming \u2014 for wavering renditions of songs including \u201cWalking on Thin Ice,\u201d \u201cBetween My Head and the Sky,\u201d and \u201cYes, I\u2019m A Witch,\u201d on which she duetted with Peaches.<\/p>\n
I tell her I have always been intrigued by this song. Was it a late retort to those who blamed her for breaking up the Beatles? \u201cNot just that, but all the negativity. I had to combat the negativity coming towards me. I felt like the world was trying to kill me spiritually for 40 years, so one day I just said, OK, I\u2019m a witch. You are saying it, so am I. Don\u2019t ever touch me as I am doing what I want to do. It is a song of rebellion. It didn\u2019t seem to go anywhere at the time, but maybe it went everywhere spiritually. It certainly made me feel that I could go on.\u201d<\/p>\n
The song is a testament to the lunar miles she has traveled since those strange days in the late 1960s, and the restless, ambitious years of creativity that preceded them. Born in Tokyo in 1933, to an aristocratic family, she was close to her father, who briefly harbored an ambition to be a classical pianist before settling down as a banker. His job meant that the family moved back and forth between Japan and America, returning to Tokyo before World War II broke out. They were in the city when it was firebombed in March 1945 \u2014 killing more than 100,000 people, it was the deadliest air raid of the entire war. Hard times followed \u2014 her parents had to barter some of their possessions for food and, for a while, live nomadically in the countryside.<\/p>\n
I ask her if she can recall the first piece of art she ever made. \u201cI remember, when we were evacuated during the war, my brother was really unhappy and depressed and really hungry because we did not have very much food. So I said, \u2018OK, let\u2019s make a menu together. What kind of dinner would you like?\u2019 And, he said, \u2018Ice-cream.\u2019 So, I said, \u2018Good, let\u2019s imagine our ice-cream dinner.\u2019 And, we did, and he started to look happy. So, I realized even then that just through imagining, we can be happy. So we had our conceptual dinner and this is maybe my first piece of art.\u201d<\/p>\n
Was she rebellious? \u201cOh yes. Naturally. I did not like the conformity of Japanese life and, though I did not have any bad feelings against my parents, the whole history of the family felt like a big weight.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the war, the family returned to New York and Yoko attended Sarah Lawrence College, a liberal establishment where activism was encouraged alongside study of the arts. She also trawled the city\u2019s art galleries and artists\u2019 hangouts, connecting with leading lights in the American avant-garde, most notably the composers La Monte Young and John Cage as well as George Maciunas of the Fluxus group.<\/p>\n
\u201cI bumped into them,\u201d she says. \u201cI didn\u2019t search them out as people think. I created friends that are like me. I attracted them. It\u2019s a journey and you have to make your own way. If you have too many quotes from other people in your head, you can\u2019t create. You have to keep your head empty. That\u2019s why I am constantly enjoying the sky, the park, the walk. Anything in life is beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her early performance pieces included \u201cLightning Piece\u201d from 1955, in which she sat at a piano and followed her own instruction to \u201cLight a match and watch it till it goes out.\u201d In 1964, she first performed her most famous work, \u201cCut Piece,\u201d in which she sat still on stage while members of the audience cut though her clothes. \u201cIt was a little scary,\u201d she says now, smiling, \u201cbut just nerves. Not fear of the people. That\u2019s another thing that is very me, I suppose. I don\u2019t let fear or suspicion in or they would affect not just my performance, but my health.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much of her text-based work, like her famous book \u201cGrapefruit,\u201d comprises short instructional sentences (\u201cImagine the clouds dripping.\/ Dig a hole in your garden to\/ put them in.\u201d \u201cLet people copy or photocopy your paintings. Destroy the originals.\u201d). I made it into instructions because I did not have a way to make some of the big things in it,\u201d she says laughing.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlus, it\u2019s important to be mischievous. I think \u2018Grapefruit\u2019 is very much a mischievous book for now. The age of the Internet, the age of fast-forward thinking. You can use that, too, as an artist. People often talk about that in a negative way \u2014 oh, I have no concentration to read a big book now. But it is not all bad. When I was doing \u2018Grapefruit,\u2019 I wanted it to read so there is no way to get bored with it. It\u2019s short but it says it all. I wanted it to do that so I made it short but full.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was her art, of course, that caught John Lennon\u2019s attention, when he attended her exhibition Unfinished Paintings and Objects in the Indica Gallery in London in November 1966, which included a conceptual piece in which she covered herself in a black bag. According to Peter Brown, director of the Beatles management company, in his book \u201cThe Love You Make,\u201d Lennon had \u201cbeen up for three consecutive days, tripping on acid, and he had not washed or shaved for 72 hours,\u201d when his friend, John Dunbar, the gallery owner, cajoled him into coming to the exhibition with a vague suggestion that it might include \u201call these beautiful young people lying around in a bag.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Lennon walked around, bemused, Dunbar urged Yoko to \u201cGo and say hello to the millionaire.\u201d Brown remembers their first conversation thus: \u201c\u2018Where\u2019s the orgy?\u2019 John asked her, slightly disappointed that nothing sexual was happening. Wordlessly, she handed John a card. On it was printed the word \u2018breathe.\u2019 \u2018You mean like this?\u2019 John said, and panted. The small Japanese woman seemed unimpressed.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, remarkably, began the ballad of John and Yoko, which was to enthral the world\u2019s media and appal many Beatles fans as the couple grew rapidly closer to the point of inseparability. It is still intriguing to see the film \u201cLet It Be,\u201d which details the dogged, fractious final recording sessions, and to watch Yoko right there in the studio with the group, albeit at Lennon\u2019s insistence. I ask her if ego is important in order to be an artist. \u201cNo,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Lennon spoke often and passionately about what he got from Ono; what did she get from him? She replies without a moment\u2019s hesitation. \u201cAn energy that said; \u2018It\u2019s all right to be me.\u2019 And that\u2019s what I gave him also. I didn\u2019t change him, as many people think, but he had a side of him that he was not able to express, because of the environment he was in, the people around him, his upbringing and all that. Because I was expressing those kinds of things, I think he thought, \u2018Yes, I can do that.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
More than 30 years have passed since his death. Though he still looms large in her life, she managed to escape the role that many people predicted for her: the perpetually grieving widow forever in her husband\u2019s shadow. \u201cWell, I could not ever just be one role like that. I never even thought of the word widow. I thought I was a soldier. We were both fighting for freedom and justice and self-expression and he just fell in the battlefield. That is how I thought of it. That I had to keep on going. I saw that right away. And I had a young son. I had to keep going.\u201d Is she concerned about old age at all? \u201cNo. I feel good. Maybe it\u2019s because I don\u2019t think about the past so much. The past is so heavy. Part of me, of course, is still carrying it, but part of me is free from it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lennon was murdered on Dec. 8, 1980, just three weeks after the release of \u201cDouble Fantasy.\u201d The Meltdown festival will culminate with the first live performance of the album, featuring Yoko, Sean and some \u201cvery special\u201d musicians and singers. It will undoubtedly be an emotional evening for her. \u201cAnd exciting, too,\u201d she says, smiling. \u201cJohn will be present for sure, but he was present from the beginning when I made the decision to curate and was thinking, I have to get this, I have to get that. Then it came to me that it was John\u2019s power. He was helping me, because, you know, he has big power now. I realized suddenly that he decided he wanted to be in a more powerful position to help us.\u201d<\/p>\n
I am slightly taken aback, but Yoko is smiling her enigmatic smile. Are you suggesting, I ask, that he somehow chose to go? She nods and continues calmly. \u201cYes, in a way, I think so. All of us decide at one point how our fates would or should be. It\u2019s logical to me, but I don\u2019t want to go too far with this or people will think, oh she has gone crazy, but I do get some messages from John. I do think there are certain things that I got help from him with. Certain things that are so fantastic I almost don\u2019t want to take any credit for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Could she give me an example? \u201cWell, Meltdown. You know that a lot of concerts sold out right away. That sort of thing. We are getting people to understand what I understand and what John understood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Which is?<\/p>\n
\u201cFuture now! The future is here right now, it\u2019s only that we ignore it. Many many beautiful things are happening now, in our heads especially, but we have to act.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is really important is to say I can do it! Let\u2019s do it! I have always said this. John said this. What I want to tell people most of all is if you don\u2019t attempt to do it, you will never do it. And you don\u2019t realize you can do it until you do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s that simple. And that complex.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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