Yoko Ono interviewed by Die Welt (August 2003)

Yoko Ono is sitting in the most expensive hotel of Paris at the Place Vendome. In the immediate vicinity of the hotel an exhibition of her art in Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris has been opened. An enormous olive tree full of wishes is located in the center of the exhibition, and visitors can add their own desires to it.

Die Welt: You are here straight from Venice. In the Biennale there was also a wish tree. How did the visitors react to it?

Yoko Ono: People love this installation, and it went very well in the Biennale.

Die Welt: Is the tree a symbol of life, are the words on the paper symbols of people?

Yoko Ono: The tree is a symbol of life - in addition, a symbol of growth. The words are expressions of people creating their own fate.

Die Welt: Do you believe that we determine our fate?

Yoko Ono: Yes, we can do that.

Die Welt: Do you think of nature and people as a fusion?

Yoko Ono: People are part of nature. But since we abuse the nature, she abuses us.

Die Welt: Nature is very much present in your work, for instance in Sky TV, where a camera films the sky outside and inside, on a monitor there are cloud formations for the visitors to view. Is the sky an escape in this piece?

Yoko Ono: It is an act which brings the sky on earth. The sky begins on earth, but we don't understand it.

Die Welt: Why is poetry a part of your installations?

Yoko Ono: I would use the word "reality" instead of "poetry". We create together a reality. Thinking and acting are the same.

Die Welt: Is everyone an artist?

Yoko Ono: If it's creative, it's art.

Die Welt: Is your art religious?

Yoko Ono: The role of art is to make the life easier for us. Art is a way of survival. The religion tells us what we must do. A work of art says: You must be you.

Die Welt: In your work "Morning piece" there are pieces of broken glass attached to texts, for example: "December 27, after the sunrise 1999". They connect a minimalistic attitude with a very suggestive figurative form.

Yoko Ono: So the critics say, but in truth it's much simpler and it was a coincidence, too. I found the fragments of glass on a beach.

Die Welt: Did you have any role models in the beginning of your artistic career?

Yoko Ono: No one, just me.

Die Welt: And John Cage?

Yoko Ono: He was very affected by Zen Buddhism as a composer. We understood each other marvelously.

Die Welt: You have experimented with conceptual art to it's very fringe where art becomes an idea. For example in your "Instruction Paintings" you give an idea of an instruction, and we must imagine it in our heads. Could you kindly give our readers an example?

Yoko Ono: Observe the sun, until it becomes a square. It's about an impossibility.

Die Welt: How would you distinguish today's art scene from the sixties's art scene?

Yoko Ono: At that time we were experimenting, we never looked back and we were provocative.

Die Welt: Do you see yourself as a key figure of the international world of art, between the Eastern and Western European culture?

Yoko Ono: This is what people always say to me. I have been told that I am a bridge between Asia and the Western countries, between women and men, between different generations. I don't see myself in that way.

Die Welt: How do you see yourself?

Yoko Ono: I'm still exploring what I can be.

Die Welt: Do you have a fear of a one, globalized world culture?

Yoko Ono: The world becomes smaller all the time, so we should learn to care for each other.

Die Welt: But people are about to destroy the world.

Yoko Ono: Negative attitude is a luxury, and we can't afford it.

Die Welt: What means "Yes" for you?

Yoko Ono: Yes to life, yes to love, yes for future and for mankind.

more information

Women's Room in Paris