Yoko Ono

Yoko Ono (b. 1933, Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese-American artist, musician, and activist who has lived and worked primarily in New York since the early 1970s. She studied philosophy at Gakushuin University in Tokyo and music at the Toho Gakuen School of Music before moving to New York in 1952. She became a central figure of the Fluxus movement in the early 1960s, organizing concerts and happenings at her Chambers Street loft that were among the first systematic explorations of participatory and conceptual performance in art.

Her publication Grapefruit (1964), a collection of instruction pieces for performances that may or may not be carried out, is among the foundational documents of conceptual art. Works such as Cut Piece (1964) — in which audience members were invited to cut away her clothing — and Ceiling Painting (Yes Painting) (1966) — which John Lennon first encountered at the Indica Gallery in London — directly engaged the viewer as co-author of the work. Her marriage to Lennon in 1969 placed her at the center of a global media culture from which she and Lennon made works of political activism, including the Bed-Ins for Peace. After Lennon's death in 1980, she continued to produce major installations, exhibitions, and musical recordings. Her retrospectives have been held at the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.