<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Encyclopedia of Ono!
Review: A thousand words are not enough and too many. Of the hundreds of art books I've bought, borrowed or stolen, this is the most elegant and *useful* one I've ever had. Munroe writes with economy and humor in language that crosses over boundaries between academia and the language of the gallery -- and everyone else who has wondered what sort of a book would attempt to encompass this wholly original and much maligned multimedia artist. This is the book to have! And the CD *rocks*. I suspected that was Sean doing some of the background vocals and certainly the bass. There are no credits in the book or on the CD itself. I wonder if that was deliberate. Buy this book. If you want your kids to know about modern art, read it to them like bedtime stories. The essays are wonderful. The photos and other reproductions of Ono's prodigious works of commercial and fine art showcase her innate sensitivity with typography as demonstrated in Grapefruit and even before that. We have treasured stills from her films, with and without her husband. And thrillingly, CLEANING PIECE, first installed in the Jerusalem Museum this year, is beautifully photographed. Yoko has arrived back at herself, and YES is the best autobiography we could have wished for. Brava Yoko Ono!
Rating: 
Summary: The Sad Facts
Review: I disdain Miss Ono's body of work. Had it not been for John Lennon, she would probably be another burnt-out artist whose mind didn't quite survive the 60's. Let us ask ourselves by what merit ths woman qualifies as an artist either visually or vocally. Her art is at best simplistic, at worst attempting a movement that had passed by the time she was a few years old. When Duchamp did it, it was innovative. When Miss Ono did it years later, it a lame, drug-laced imitation of early 20th-century masters. If we must endure widows of rock stars and their art, I sincerely hope the world ends before Courtney Love discovers the Dadaists.
Rating:
Summary: The Sad Facts
Review: I disdain Miss Ono's body of work. Had it not been for John Lennon, she would probably be another burnt-out artist whose mind didn't quite survive the 60's. Let us ask ourselves by what merit ths woman qualifies as an artist either visually or vocally. Her art is at best simplistic, at worst attempting a movement that had passed by the time she was a few years old. When Duchamp did it, it was innovative. When Miss Ono did it years later, it a lame, drug-laced imitation of early 20th-century masters. If we must endure widows of rock stars and their art, I sincerely hope the world ends before Courtney Love discovers the Dadaists.
Rating:
Summary: YES, YES, YES
Review: I was at the SFMOMA to see her YES exhibition, and exactly what I expected, I was overwhelmed with delight... Her art is whimsically amazing. Her music touches your heart and soul. Seeing all the people there that day, I was glad that Yoko is finally getting all the respect she deserves, after all these years... Also caught her live performance at the Los Angeles's Roxy almost 6 years ago just took my breath away. I truly think she's one of the true visionaries of our time.
Rating:
Summary: An exquisite and thorough "art book" of a diverse artist
Review: If you like Yoko Ono as an artist, poet, musician or as an individual you will find this book priceless. This book covers all the avenues in which Ono created and expressed herself. "Yes Yoko Ono" accomplishes in book form what "OnoBox" achieved on disc (an extensive collection of an extraordinary woman and artist.) The reviews, letters and material covered all provide the reader with an insightful and intelligent look at not only Yoko Ono but, also, into the darkly luminous catacombs of the creative force behind this woman. This book is multi-layered with information and photographs that will need to be read and read again and again. This will be a well in which I draw from for years to come. A book I will keep near my bed for late night readings. As Yoko grows older she reminds me more and more of Georgia O'Keeffe, another extraordinary woman and artist. I truly believe that the history books will one day recognize Ono as being as significant as the Beatles and Dylan were to our culture, except that Ono was a more diversified and cutting edge artist and thinker than her contemporaries.
Rating: 
Summary: A challenging artist given her due
Review: In the early 1960s, Yoko Ono established herself as a challenging and often puzzling artist. She worked across the boundaries of media, making impossible to categorize her work in any field. A pioneer in conceptual art, video, and installation, Ono also crossed the boundaries into design with projects that took the form of advertising and designed artifacts. Alexandra Munroe and Jon Hendricks have surveyed the forty years of Ono's career in a richly illustrated book with essays and contributions by many scholars, including Kevin Concannon, Joan Rothfuss, and Kristine Stiles. The superb documentation includes an anthology of Ono's own writings compiled by Jon Hendricks, together with an excellent chronology and bibliography. Ken Friedman. "Alexandra Munroe with Jon Hendricks: Yes Yoko Ono." Book review published in Design Research News, Volume 6, Number 5, May 2001 ISSN 1473-3862.
Rating: 
Summary: Yoko Ono is someone we love or hate
Review: Prejudice and bias exist in the business world. There are some deep seated prejudice and bias that cannot be explained with rational argument, thought or action.
I call this the Yoko Ono factor. The Beatles came to America when I was 4 years old and were the musical soundtrack to my childhood. All of my friends were caught up in Beatlemania at its worst. The Beatles were my life. When I turn 10, they were gone. I blamed this on Yoko. People who study the history of the Beatles note that a lot of factors played into their breakup. There were creative differences, jealousies and the fact that George Harrison had developed as a songwriter along with Lennon and McCartney. None of this mattered to me. I dumped all of the blame on Yoko. Admittedly Yoko was a good target. She was strange, even for the 1960's counter culture era. John helped her launch her singing career, which sounds like the noise a cat would make if its tail were caught in a lawnmower. John and her did things like stay in bed for a week with the idea that this would bring world peace. Although I see internet offers these days for people doing a lot of things in bed, none, not even Paris Hilton, attach any goal of widespread social change to their actions. Yoko did and it made me hate her even more. I spent most of my teenage years hoping that John would see the light, dump Yoko and the Beatles would go right back to dominating the music scene. That did not happen and on December 10, 1980, Mark David Chapman took that chance away forever when he murdered John Lennon. Lennon's death hit me like the death of a loved one. My friends and I sat and played Imagine over and over again for days. Although I was grieving, I could not extend sympathy to Yoko, John's true love. The prejudice had gone that far. It has been 23 years since John was taken from us. George has died too and Ringo and Paul aren't putting out many hits anymore. There is no way the Beatles could get back together and I still can't warm up to Yoko. I suspect I never will. Short of Yoko coming to my house and hanging out under an expressed promise not to break into her singing voice, there is not a scenario where I can find Yoko endearing. It is just too hard. I've spent all of my life fighting against discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, size and appearance (I'm fat and don't like for other fat people to be discriminated against) and yet I understand how bigotry develops because of my issues with Yoko Ono. I see how it can take generations for change to happen and logic and rational thought to win out. In the business world, the Yoko Ono factor has significant consequences when people cannot make smart choices because of irrational factors. I was watching a biography of Colonel Sanders and found that since he did not believe owning stock, his secretary, who did believe in it, made more money on Kentucky Fried Chicken than he did. People in business see it every day. People who don't believe in stock or real estate even when those have been proven to be great long term investments. People who "don't like insurance companies" even when insurance would provide needed protection and annuities have shown to be great investments with tax advantages. There are Yoko Ono factors that pop up in everyone's life in every circumstances. My dad refused to play cards with anyone who smoked a pipe. He could not explain why. I guess knowing why is the key. If you understand why you have a bias and where it comes from, it is easier to get rid of your personal Yoko Ono factor in your life. If I got to know Yoko, I suspect I would probably like her. She was a part of one of the greatest music story of the 20th century and is a close link to an important part of musical history and history in general. The Beatles had a dramatic impact on popular culture and Yoko was there for all of it. We would probably wind up being friends. As long as she promised never to sing. (...)
Rating:
Summary: Understanding Yoko Ono in the context of her own art
Review: The price of fame can be extremely high; Yoko Ono came to prominence because of her relationship to super-celebrity John Lennon. Without this association to Lennon, she'd probably be relegated to the rarified world of conceptual art and never be a household name. But the fame came at a high price; she was villified for her influence on the pop-cult Beatles and blamed for their demise. This is unfair; the Beatles would have evolved and changed without any help from Yoko Ono or Linda Eastman McCartney. And then she suffered the cruelest blow of all, to have her husband murdered by a crazed fan. I became a fan of her art in the 60's when I read about some of her "performance" art; one favorite; she dressed herself in her best dress,gave scissors to members of an audience, sat down in a chair and encouraged them to take snips out of her dress. At first, people were shy to do so, then as one or another became bolder and snipped bits from the dress, the group became practically frenzied and she felt even worried they would go farther than just snipping a dress with the shears. A wonderful elucidation of human behavior and original; it gave new insight into ourselves and thus was truly a work of art. Other works that impressed me were photos of the bottoms of bare feet, from under a glass surface, and of course the film of buttocks, which I personally never did have a chance to see, but loved the idea of. This book is a tremendous resource of information into Yoko Ono's varied art including her music. (No reason why a CD can't be part of a book, great idea.) This book is a fine retrospective, and I only regret that Yoko Ono will never fully take her place in modern art because of the diluting influence of pop culture on her history, and because conceptual art still has not been given the same validity as other media. (Christo perhaps is the only one to have transcended this barrier, because he sells prints of his monumentally engineered and staged concepts.)
<< 1 >>
| 
