Too often reduced to being merely a muse to his career, it’s clear that Yoko Ono was, in fact, the master, doubtlessly inspiring The Beatles and Lennon’s deeper dive into experimentation as she brought her avant-garde experience and vastly creative brain into their realm. [...] Throughout "Music Of The Mind" (until 1st september, 2024), the Tate turns those voices down to turn the sound of Ono’s own remarkable and expansive career up. [...] Tate’s efforts feel like a vital redirection and rebalancing of Ono’s history. As they highlight her collaborations with the likes of John Cage, they spotlight her place in the exciting sect of avant-garde artists who used sound as a canvas.

As a blockbuster Tate Modern exhibition on her opens, we celebrate Yoko Ono and explore why she's never been given a fair trial “Yoko Ono is such a versatile artist and has worked in so many different ways to convey her message,” says Juliet Bingham, co-curator of Tate Modern’s "Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind" (15 February - 2 November at Tate Modern).“One of the things the show tries to do is honour all the different strands of her métier – participatory work, her conceptual pieces and art designed to stimulate the imagination of the viewer. Yoko upended the relationship between the artist and the audience.”

From February 15th to September 1st, 2024, Tate Modern presents UK’s largest exhibition celebrating the influential work of artist and activist Yoko Ono, spanning seven decades of her multidisciplinary practice. Titled YOKO ONO: MUSIC OF THE MIND, the show features over 200 works, including installations, films, music, and photography, highlighting Ono’s radical approach to language, art, and participation. Ono’s art revolves around ideas expressed in poetic, humorous, and profound ways. The exhibition delves into her role in experimental avant-garde circles in New York and Tokyo, focusing on her ‘instruction pieces,’ which encourage visitors to imagine, experience, or complete the work.

Now 90, Yoko Ono is still at it, though not making much art any more. And although many of Ono’s works were first originated as ideas and notes she wrote during the 1950s and 60s, I am sure her retrospective will be popular, not so much for students of fluxus and early performance and conceptual art, so much as for the opportunity to interact. Wanting to be more than mute spectators, audiences now want to do more than pay respect to history, to the blue chip and the elevated. They want to feel included and to have agency. From the start, this was something Ono acknowledged and encouraged. Her exhibition "Music of the Mind" is now at Tate Modern, London, from 15 February to 1 September.