By Celine Chen
Yoko Ono, John Lennon's widow, is perhaps most famous for her association with John Lennon, but outside their marriage, she is a first-class artist in her own right.
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Yoko Ono
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Now, the still-vigorous 75-year-old will open her first Chinese solo exhibition in Shanghai's Ke Center for the Contemporary Arts on November 22. The title of the exhibition is "Yoko Ono -- Fly." Ono will give a display of performance art, named Onochord, on the opening day, where she will act out a process of molting. Not only is Yoko an artist – she is also the exhibition organizer. She has been preparing the event since last year.
Nine significant installation artworks reflect her experiences and thoughts over 50 years. Her artworks are simple but powerful, focusing on life and death, renaissance, exchange, faith, women's liberation, and peace.
Her 1960s film "Fly" will also be screened during the exhibition. The film is very simple: a fly on a motionless woman. The woman is as if in a coma; the only thing that moves is the fly, settling on different parts of the woman. The film is superficially boring, but expresses sexual desire through the fly’s every tiny movement. Ono has said that the film is a form of self-expression.
Another installation artwork is called "Exit". She created it in 1997. One hundred coffins are laid out on the ground and pine trees are planted in the places where the faces of the deceased should be. The flourishing pine trees symbolize the live of the faces before they died.
"Wish Tree" which debuted in 2004 will also be in the exhibition -- a work in which Ono invited passersby to write their hearts’ deepest desires on small paper tags and tie them to one of 21 crepe myrtle trees planted in recycled wine barrels.
Yoko Ono Lennon, born in Tokyo on February 18, 1933, is a Japanese artist and musician best-known for her avant-garde work, and her marriage to and work with musician John Lennon.
