Yoko Ono stands out as a key figure in contemporary art, celebrated for her innovative and thought-provoking works that defy traditional artistic norms. Born in Japan and later relocating to the United States, Ono’s journey as a Japanese-American woman has profoundly influenced her art. Moreover her work transcends conventional boundaries, tackling social issues and inspiring contemporary artists to delve into the realms of transnationalism, social consciousness, and artistic originality.

Today in Affaires Sensibles, Yoko Ono, Oh yes, or the romantic journey of a mysterious artist, and a 1.57 m tall misunderstanding, who has hovered over popular culture for almost 60 years. Yoko Ono is first and foremost the black widow through whom the scandal arrived; the one who, by dint of manipulations and satanic acts, destroyed the Beatles from the inside [...] Of course, all this is false, but it's the little tune we've been hearing regularly since the group's official split in April 1970. So who built this reputation? One thing is certain: before being the wife of a genius, Yoko Ono is first and foremost a unique artist whose aura extends far beyond music. A survivor of the Second World War, who arrived in New York from Japan at the age of 19 and was close to the Fluxus art movement, Yoko Ono had a thousand lives before embracing that of the Liverpool 4. Clever and calculating as well as warm and optimistic, she remains a mystery to this day. But who's behind that round face, impassive gaze and inimitable voice?

By entering the show, one steps through Yoko Ono's gaze into a memory bank that includes seven-decades of her work [...] This reiterates Ono's premise : that the real aesthetic accomplishment exists primarily in one's own mind, or the mind of the viewer, even if that realization is catalyzed by material iterations-like a film, photograph, or performance.

Yoko Ono is making a return to Baltic; not in person, as in 2008 when her work was the subject of a major exhibition at the Gateshead centre for contemporary art, but as an artistic presence. Her IMAGINE PEACE artwork, exhibited as part of that show, is being displayed again as a banner on the outside of the building to mark International Day of Peace on Saturday, September 21. With so much conflict dominating headlines, it can do no harm – whatever cynics might say - to pay heed to Yoko’s plea to “think peace, spread peace and act peace”. Baltic is marking the day with activities aimed at encouraging reflection on peace and unity. Visitors will be invited to add messages to a trio of Yoko-inspired Peace Trees and participate in creative writing workshops.

Yoko Ono has lived a life without boundaries. A Japanese woman who made her voice heard around the globe, she refused to let the barriers of race, class, or gender impede her message. A true cross-disciplinary artist, she has transformed her life into a near century-long creative practise. A ground-breaking visual artist. A profoundly influential musician. A peace activist across multiple decades. Yoko Ono is a by-word in freedom. Walking around London’s incredible new career-spanning exhibition Yoko Ono: Music Of The Mind at the Tate Modern, you’re struck by the sheer wonder, and the undaunted veracity by which she approaches art. A stunning display of virtuoso innovation, the awesome range of her creative force is enhanced by her unique ability never to repeat herself.

People around the world–from artists and cultural icons like Yoko Ono and Paris Jackson to Nobel laureates, members of Congress, and global leaders and organizations–are marking 79 years since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings by taking part in #CranesforOurFuture, the largest digital demonstration of support for a world without nuclear weapons. To participate in the campaign between August 6 and 9, the dates of the 1945 atomic bombings of Japan, people fold and share paper cranes on social media with a message about why moving closer to a world without nuclear weapons is important to them.

With "Yoko Ono, Music of the Mind", the Tate (until September 1, 2024) devotes a luminous retrospective to the visual artist, a welcome spotlight on the work of this pioneer of performance art, long caricatured and reduced to her Beatles husband.

Ono’s notoriety overshadowed her practice to the point of displacing it, thanks to her misogynistically conferred reputation as the woman who broke up the Beatles. But Ono had already been a well-established figure in the postwar avant-garde by the time she met Lennon, due to her association with the Fluxus movement. [...] Only five people attended her opening exhibition in July 1961, including Cage and the sculptor Isamu Noguchi. Among the items presented was an irregularly shaped piece of army-surplus canvas on the floor with a handwritten note next to it that read, “A work to be stepped on.” This sort of invitation to viewer participation would become a hallmark of Ono’s oeuvre, along with a puckish sense of humor that undermined the gravitas usually accorded art. [...] In style and substance, Ono’s work retained remarkable consistency throughout her oeuvre. [...] The last 20 or so years have seen Ono’s reemergence as an artist, with newer works emphasizing her lifelong pacifism. Another work was a 2016 iteration of her “Add Color” series from 1961, in which she invited viewers to write or draw on blank white objects that included globes and canvases. For the newer version, on view at Tate Modern through August, the item in question was a rowboat representing the refugee crisis fomented by the Syrian civil war.

Showcasing her expertise across various media, the exhibition of Shilpa Gupta ,"I did not tell you what I saw, but only what I dreamt" (MMOCA, June 28, 2024 – January 14, 2025), features her interactive sound installations, sculptures, photographs, and drawings. A conceptual artist, Gupta’s distinctive approach challenges viewers to reflect on how information shapes our perception of reality in today's global society. Guiding Gupta's art is her research into the power of language, examining how large-scale institutions and invisible structures adopt it to define and enforce societal norms. She also considers language as a tool of resistance, empowering individuals to create new possibilities and challenge existing power structures. She applies these insights to explore issues surrounding the enforcement of national borders, cultural and social identity, religious and ethnic persecution, and the limits of free speech.

Arts icon and activist Yoko Ono was awarded the 64th annual Edward MacDowell Medal on Sunday for her “ground-breaking, distinctively inventive, and enormously influential” career as an interdisciplinary artist over seven decades. “There has never been anyone like her; there has never been work like hers … She has rewarded eyes, provoked thought, inspired feminists, and defended migrants through works of a wide-ranging imagination. Enduringly fresh and pertinent, her uniquely powerful oeuvre speaks to our own times, so sorely needful of her leitmotif: Peace,” author and board Chairman Nell Painter told an estimated 1,100 guests at the MacDowell.

The installation ‘Spread Peace: Wish Tree by Yoko Ono’ [...] was led by the Japan Institute of Portland Japanese Garden, an American non-profit organisation and cultural institution based in Portland, Oregon. [...] The Wish Tree showed simultaneously from June –10 at Portland Japanese Garden in the US, Keihanna Commemorative Garden in Japan, Kokoro no Niwa in Chile, and our Emmarentia-based gardens. This collaboration expanded on the "Yoko Ono: Peace is Power" exhibition showing at the Nobel Peace Centre in Oslo, Norway. Wish Tree invited guests to reflect and write their wishes for peace, which were then tied to the tree’s branches. Over time, the Wish Trees become adorned with these hopeful missives, evolving into a visual representation of the community’s collective aspirations for peace in our time.

Drawing inspiration from the iconic peace anthem 'Happy Xmas! War Is Over!' by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, filmmakers Dave Mullins and Brad Booker from ElectroLeague, along with co-writer and producer Sean Ono Lennon, secured their first Academy Award on Sunday. [... ] Sometimes the best stories can be told with the help of a chessboard. The game is a key element in "War Is Over", and the 11-minute indie flick revolves around two soldiers, from opposite camps. In the short, the cerebral clash of chess is used as a metaphor for humanizing the soldiers and as a way of communication. [...] Ono, now 91 years old, has long been known as a chess enthusiast, playing chess with her late husband in the music video for 'Don't Count The Waves' from 1972. She also designed “Play It By Trust”, a chess set where all the pieces are white resulting in the players having to collaborate in order to remember where they placed the pieces, showing off her clear anti-war stance. "Chess is a universal language," her son Sean remarked in an interview.