Yoko Ono

I've just been to the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art to see an exhibition on Yoko Ono.

It was interesting. I liked very much the wishing tree standing near the entrance, where the public were asked to write a wish on a note and stick it to the branches provided. This seems to be a version of the things in shinto shrines (I've seen examples of them in Tokyo), but without the explicit reference to religion. The fun part of it is to be able to see the wishes of other people (such as someone wishing for soccer team Vålerenga to beat Ham-Kam (the team I'm a fan of) 7-0 in the opening of the new season (fat chance!)). The more serious part is the idea that by focusing on your wish and writing it down, you may get more aware of it and actually work a little harder at making it come true.

Another part I liked, for much the same reason, was the wall where everyone was asked to write something on their mom. (I just wrote "Mom is the best".) It's touching to see all the love for mothers, and at the same time it's a good thing to express the love of your mother publicly (although anonymously).

Yet another piece I liked was a glass maze. In the centre of the maze, there was a WC. It was quite fun to walk through it, even though I'm not really able to ascribe a more complex meaning to it at the moment...

I got some ethical worries though. Earlier, I had read about the movie "Rape", where Yoko Ono's film crew followed a supposedly randomly selected person for a whole day. In the beginning of the day, the subject of this was flattered, at the end of the day, it was an invation of privacy. If this person was actually only an actor, the ethical worries of course goes away.

The thing in the exhibition that worried me was a movie from a performance some years ago. She was on a stage, letting the audience use scissors to remove pieces of her clothing. Supposedly this was art, but she must have realized that this work of art would not be seen solely as that by everyone in the audience. Therefore, the performance turns as much into a study of the reaction of the audience as a study of her. My worry is how the audience was prepared for being part of a study of their reaction to this quasi-erotic scene. Was the young man who took off the main part of her clothes aware that he would become a part of a piece of art being exhibited in museums years later? Or was he just tantallized by being near female skin?

All in all, however, it was a small but interesting exhibition. And I'll try to remember calling my mom tomorrow... :-)