|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
    
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 924
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 11:08 am: |       |
Dear All
Check out Yoko Ono's controversial "art" in Liverpool as part of the city's Biennial International Exhibition. Yoko has created a work entitled My Mummy Was Beautiful. . .
But is it art?
Remember how following the Super Bowl halftime show a momentary flash of Janet Jackson's pasty-obscured nipple caused a rumpus here!!! 
Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
|
David O'Flaherty
Inspector
Username: Oberlin
Post Number: 414
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 11:43 am: | |
Hi, Chris. Thanks for posting about this.
Well, it's not art like paintings of fruit are art, but sure this is also worthwhile. Yoko gets a lot of bad press, but that's because her work is meant to be provocative, and some of it is frankly weird. But weird's good. Stimulating debate is the goal of any avant-garde artist, don't you think? I wouldn't be surprised if Yoko had the whole Super Bowl thing in mind when she did this.
Lennon said once that he thought the problem people had with Yoko was that sometimes she expressed herself in ways that hurt. She certainly does express a bluntness here--distilling motherhood into private parts. But that's her way of getting people to think about just what a mother is.
Her work's going to outlive her. Last year I saw where some of it was being revived--it was that piece where the audience cuts the clothes off a woman on stage. Just reading about it, it sounds silly, but I think if you were to actually be in a theatre while this was taking place, there'd be a pretty heavy atmosphere.
A lot's said about her music--I don't like a lot of it myself. But some of it I do enjoy (particularly the songs on Some Time in New York City. Sounds like the B-52s, although it was recorded in 1972. She's got several good tracks on Double Fantasy, too.
Cheers,
Dave |
Robert Charles Linford
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Robert
Post Number: 3034
Registered: 3-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 12:04 pm: | |
She hasn't re-done her piece on bottoms, then? Of course, you'd have to stand back a little while admiring it....
Robert |
Kelly Robinson
Detective Sergeant
Username: Kelly
Post Number: 84
Registered: 2-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 12:16 pm: | |
There's a good interview with Yoko in Giant Robot magazine this month. She's 72, can you believe it?
-K
"The past isn't over. It isn't even past."
William Faulkner |
David O'Flaherty
Inspector
Username: Oberlin
Post Number: 415
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 12:30 pm: | |
Hi, Robert
And then there's the humorous side of Yoko--I forgot about Bottoms  I also liked the whole bagism thing they were doing around 1969, where they'd call a press conference, and John and Yoko would be inside a giant bag--the idea was that celebrity should be ignored, that only what you said mattered. And they gave the whole interview from inside the bag. The reporters are thrusting microphones towards this big shapeless bag. I found that very funny, the whole thing was tongue-in-cheek.
Lennon said later that after the press conference (I think it was in Amsterdam) a fan came up and said "I've been waiting my whole life to meet you and when you finally show up, you're hiding inside a stupid bag?"
It's been awhile since I've read it, but I think Yoko talks about her philosophy in the 1980 Playboy Interview, although the focus is mostly John Lennon.
Cheers,
Dave |
Christopher T George
Chief Inspector
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 925
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 1:04 pm: | |
Hi, David
That's probably a good observation that Yoko could have been inspired by the Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake halftime incident and the furor it sparked off. I agree that it would be very like her to want to expose the hypocrisy of that outcry.
Incidentally, I recently wrote a poem about a conceptual/performance artist who in some ways was like Yoko. Ana Mendieta was a Cuban American artist who died in Soho, New York, either by suicide or murder when she fell from a high rise onto the roof of a deli.
All the best
Chris
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
|
Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 1147
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, September 16, 2004 - 4:23 pm: | |
Hi Chris,well to me a lot of it is just the shock factor.Once you have enjoyed that or been irritated by it thats about it.
The work of Frank Auerbach,Leon Kossof, Lucian Freud has taken years and years of dedicated commitment to painting[and so did Sickert"s work which they and Bomberg before them are the natural heirs to.They are the stars of contemporary painting along with Paula Rego to a lesser extent for me because she is a bit too illustrative to be truly painterly a lot of the time.But all these have a real commitment to the integrity of an artist and the view that creativity can find expression in paint.Not one of them has chased fads not even that of pop art.I believe their work will outlast all this other stuff by a very long time.But I do enjoy some of it and I very much like Tracy Emin and understand[I think]what she is trying to express in her own way.
I didnt know of the Cuban artist you mention.My own youth was spent admiring Che Guevara!---Do go and see Motorcycle Diaries its wonderful!
Best Natalie |
Bruce McGovern
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - 9:23 pm: | |
I knew Ana, or Ana Maria as family and friends called her. She came to Iowa with her sister, her mom came later, and her dad was held in Cuba for a very long time, and for art study she first went to U of I. I was married to a Cuban woman for a while and we visited socially with the family and other Cubans. Ana's ashes are located at Cedar Memorial Cemetery in Cedar Rapids, with her parents bodies. Her sister lives somewhere far away, and her brother the last I knew still lives in C.R.
It was interesting that many of the family's friends had no idea of her internationally noted art activities. Of course, avant garde does imply that a lot of people are not interested.
One reason her family did not believe she tossed herself out the window is she was deathly afraid of heights, it was almost impossible to get her up a step ladder to put up party decorations. That does not prove anything, but it does explain why those close to her believed as they did.
|
|
Use of these
message boards implies agreement and consent to our Terms of Use.
The views expressed here in no way reflect the views of the owners and
operators of Casebook: Jack the Ripper.
Our old message board content (45,000+ messages) is no longer available online, but a complete archive
is available on the Casebook At Home Edition, for 19.99 (US) plus shipping.
The "At Home" Edition works just like the real web site, but with absolutely no advertisements.
You can browse it anywhere - in the car, on the plane, on your front porch - without ever needing to hook up to
an internet connection. Click here to buy the Casebook At Home Edition.
|
|
|
|
