yoko ono 76
Happy birthday, Yoko! Stay well and happy.
art, john lennon's security blanket
Creative Loafing interview by Heidi Kurpleia (March 25th 2009): Q: "Tell me about the drawing of you and John sitting back-to-back while you're crying. It's titled, "I'm sorry." What happened here?"
Yoko Ono: "That was in London, in the beginning. We had to sort out a few things in the beginning and he was very keen on finding out what kind of life I had. Like, "Give me all the names of the people you slept with" -- that sort of thing. And when I did, like a fool, he got very angry and I said, "It is what you wanted to know. I never said I was a virgin."
rockstars ‘r us
p2pnet news (March 27th 2009): "A coalition of high-profile rock stars say they’re turning their works loose online so people everywhere can enjoy their music without fear. The group, called Rockstars ‘R US, includes Paul McCartney, Cliff Richard, Yoko Ono, Barry Gibb, Petula Clark, and Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich."
Yoko Ono: “We’re hoping this will encourage other super stars who’ve become multi-millionaires from copyright royalties to follow our example.”
the ballad of john and yoko 40 years later
NBC Bay Area (March 20th 2009): "Yoko and I are quite willing to be the world's clowns, if by doing it we do some good,” John Lennon once said."
pet shop boys' new album titled "yes"
Antimusic (March 9th 2009): "We can't seem to remember how we came up with the title Yes," says Neil. "Our official story is that we may have taken it from the famous Yoko Ono exhibition in 1967 where you had to climb up a step ladder – as John Lennon famously did - pick up a magnifying glass, look at a tiny word written on the ceiling, and the word was 'yes'. I think it partly came from that." (Chris adds: "We thought No was a bit negative.")"
Lennon’s iconic song, which asks its listeners to “imagine there’s no heaven”, will be played by cathedral bell-ringers – conducted by installation artist Cleo Evans – as part of the North West’s Futuresonic festival in May. Last week’s news came after months of negotiations with cathedral bosses, who say they believe the performance will inspire thought and “anticipate it will be a very moving and spiritual experience and will engage with all people including those who don’t usually interact with places of worship”."
beatles rock band game to be released on september 9th 2009
Artist Direct (March 6th 2009): "The first playable, fully-endorsed Beatles title will be available for Xbox, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii on the same day, offering to take "players on a journey through the legacy and evolution of the band's legendary career." Beyond that, a limited number of special controllers will be available, as modeled after the guitars, basses and drums the legendary band once used."
yoko ono to be awarded venice biennale golden lion
ClickLiverpool (February 26th 2009): "Yoko Ono is being awarded a prestigious Golden Lion at the 53rd International Venice Biennale 2009, for Lifetime Achievement. Peace activist Yoko will be presented the award alongside John Baldessari on 6th June 2009 during the opening of the 53rd International Art Exhibition titled Making Worlds. Director Daniel Birnbaum said: "Yoko Ono and John Baldessari have shaped our understanding of art and its relationship to the world in which we live. "Their work has revolutionized the language of art and will remain a source of inspiration for generations to come."
25 things you did not know about yoko ono
Undercover (March 1st 2009): "My head was unusually large for my small bod. So John called me a “Martian"."
another review of philip norman's biography of john lennon
The Times Literary Supplement (February 20th 2009): "The book ends with an interview with Sean Ono Lennon, who is now in his thirties. He was five years old and in bed when his father was murdered seven floors below. His mother told him what had happened the next morning, as the apartment filled with sombre visitors. A crowd gathered on West 72nd Street. It took Sean some time to connect the iconic figure with the man who slouched around the apartment in flip-flops and taught him how to use his knife and fork. He appears still not to have come to terms with the tragedy: “the experience of someone that you can get through their work is not comparable to the experience you can get from just sitting on someone’s lap”. Philip Norman’s book is the best attempt yet to restore human dimensions to Sean Lennon’s transfigured father."
UNI sends Yoko Ono a birthday wish for peace
February 18th 2009: "UNI Global Union today wished Yoko Ono a happy birthday and sent a birthday wish for peace to the artist, musician and activist. In his birthday message video, General Secretary Philip Jennings said UNI supports Ono’s Imagine Peace campaign and he called on politicians and leaders to heed her call for world peace. “We are 100 percent behind the Imagine Peace Initiative,” Jennings said. “This is something important to working people, families and communities everywhere.” Jennings invited Ono to attend the UNI World Congress in Nagasaki, Japan, in 2010, where promoting peace will be one of the major initiatives with rallies, peace tree plantings and other activities."
remembering 1969: new exhibit to open in montreal
Newsweek Budget Travel (February 20th 2009): "To commemorate the event, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts will host Imagine: The Peace Ballad of John and Yoko beginning Apr. 2. The free event, co-curated by Ono who loaned many of the items on display, includes drawings, videos, and unpublished photographs, along with other mementos from John and Yoko's life together."
According to Digital Spy, Yoko Ono has called on fans to recreate the famous 'bed-in' that she and John Lennon staged exactly four decades ago. To celebrate the event's 40th anniversary, Ono has asked fans planning to recreate the protest to send their pictures and stories to Imaginepeace for publishing.
yoko ono exhibition adds colour to the art world
The Journal (February 18th 2009): "Families are being encouraged to add their creative touches to a work by Yoko Ono. The-six day event is part of an exhibition of the Japanese artist at the Baltic, on the Gateshead side of the Tyne. Parents and children will use Yoko Ono’s 1966 Add Colour Painting as inspiration when adding paint to a giant 60m-long white banner."
fluxus art to moma
Artnet (February 17th 2009): "The Museum of Modern Art has added a trove of ca. 3,000 works by Fluxus artists -- George Brecht, Robert Filliou, Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles, Yoko Ono, Ben Vautier, Robert Watts and others -- courtesy Gilbert and Lila Silverman, who began collecting Fluxus art in 1978 (and enlisted artist Jon Hendricks as curator in 1981). The Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection makes MoMA a major center for scholarship in Fluxus art."
john lennon educational tour bus is on the move
Happy News (February 17th 2009): "John Lennon Educational Tour Bus, a mobile audio and high-definition video recording and production facility on wheels that travels across the U.S. to give young people hands-on experience creating their own works of art. With the help of the bus’s state-of-the-art equipment, these youths have the opportunity to work with celebs to write, mix, record and produce their own music. The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus is a nonprofit program that was started in 1998 in an effort to combat the cutbacks on music and art programs in schools."
"ben lee pops the message in the music"
Courier Mail (February 4th 2009): "Lee is talking about these matters with his new album The Rebirth of Venus, out on February 7, loaded with positive messages in songs such as What's So Bad (About Feeling Good) and his tribute to another believer in the message of peace, Yoko Ono.
"Her art is so brave, she's consistently pushed the limits with the same message, wanting people to expand their imaginations and peace. My generation, we need people like Yoko Ono."
"she's still got it"
New York Press (February 6th 2009): "Her recent call for remixes of "Give Peace a Chance" yielded dance tracks from DJs all over the world, including India's Karsh Kale, Russia's Kimbar and Greece's Alex Santer. The album becomes available, digital-only, on Feb. 18."
John Lennon during the Montreal Bed-in 1969.
Photo by Gerry Deiter
