John Prosser
Yoko Ono Cut Piece, 1968
Silver print
10 x 8 inches
With photographer's credit, manuscript notations, and affixed caption verso.
With photographer's credit, manuscript notations, and affixed caption verso.
Known today for her contributions to the avant-garde, human rights activism, and relationship with John Lennon, Yoko Ono is one of the most recognized artists living today. This photograph documents...
Known today for her contributions to the avant-garde, human rights activism, and relationship with John Lennon, Yoko Ono is one of the most recognized artists living today. This photograph documents a scene from Ono’s career-defining performance entitled “Cut Piece.” The image shows a young Ono sitting semi-nude while the hands of someone out of frame cuts away another piece of already tattered dress.
The stunning photograph captures the duality of Ono’s tranquil expression and the unsettling anticipation of cruelty enacted by a faceless aggressor. First performed in Yamachi Concert Hall in Kyoto, Japan in 1964, this seminal live performance involved audience members being instructed to cut away Ono’s clothing while she sat unflinchingly until the work could no longer go on. The performance was widely interpreted as a statement on gender violence due to the sensational nature of audience participation, despite its more broad intentions by the artist, and found success during the emergence of second-wave feminism. “Cut Piece” was reprised multiple times, embedded with new intentions, in New York, Paris, and Tokyo.
This photograph from her London rendition of the performance was taken by photographer, John Prosser, at the 1966 Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS), a gathering of musicians, artists, thinkers, and members of the counterculture involved with Fluxus.
Yoko Ono was born in Tokyo, Japan on February 18, 1933 and moved to New York in the 1950s to study at Sarah Lawrence College. While many may know her in relation to marriage to famed English musician of the Beatles, John Lennon, Ono is a prolific artist whose work was critical to the New York downtown Fluxus scene of the 1960s. In 1969, she married Lennon and they formed the critically acclaimed experimental group, the Plastic Ono Band. That same year, Ono and Lennon performed their Bed-ins for Peace which were their nonviolent protest and performance against the Vietnam War. Much of her work and collaboration with her late husband were centered on promoting peace through their celebrity for various causes, continuing even after Lennon’s assassination in 1980. She has been the subject of retrospectives at internationally acclaimed institutions such as the Whitney Museum in 1989 and the Museum of Modern Art in 2015; and has received multiple accolades including the MOCA Award to Distinguished Women in the Arts in 2003 and the Golden Lion Award for lifetime achievement at the 2009 Venice Biennale.
The stunning photograph captures the duality of Ono’s tranquil expression and the unsettling anticipation of cruelty enacted by a faceless aggressor. First performed in Yamachi Concert Hall in Kyoto, Japan in 1964, this seminal live performance involved audience members being instructed to cut away Ono’s clothing while she sat unflinchingly until the work could no longer go on. The performance was widely interpreted as a statement on gender violence due to the sensational nature of audience participation, despite its more broad intentions by the artist, and found success during the emergence of second-wave feminism. “Cut Piece” was reprised multiple times, embedded with new intentions, in New York, Paris, and Tokyo.
This photograph from her London rendition of the performance was taken by photographer, John Prosser, at the 1966 Destruction in Art Symposium (DIAS), a gathering of musicians, artists, thinkers, and members of the counterculture involved with Fluxus.
Yoko Ono was born in Tokyo, Japan on February 18, 1933 and moved to New York in the 1950s to study at Sarah Lawrence College. While many may know her in relation to marriage to famed English musician of the Beatles, John Lennon, Ono is a prolific artist whose work was critical to the New York downtown Fluxus scene of the 1960s. In 1969, she married Lennon and they formed the critically acclaimed experimental group, the Plastic Ono Band. That same year, Ono and Lennon performed their Bed-ins for Peace which were their nonviolent protest and performance against the Vietnam War. Much of her work and collaboration with her late husband were centered on promoting peace through their celebrity for various causes, continuing even after Lennon’s assassination in 1980. She has been the subject of retrospectives at internationally acclaimed institutions such as the Whitney Museum in 1989 and the Museum of Modern Art in 2015; and has received multiple accolades including the MOCA Award to Distinguished Women in the Arts in 2003 and the Golden Lion Award for lifetime achievement at the 2009 Venice Biennale.