{"id":775,"date":"2009-07-08T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-08T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2009\/07\/target_practice_yoko_ohno_-_re\/"},"modified":"2009-07-08T05:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-08T12:00:00","slug":"target_practice_yoko_ohno_-_re","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2009\/07\/target_practice_yoko_ohno_-_re.html","title":{"rendered":"Target Practice: Yoko Ono – refusing to follow her instructions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Review of Target Practice: Painting Under Attack 1949-78<\/i><\/a> (here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Included in the exhibit <\/i><\/a> is Yoko Ono’s Painting to Hammer a Nail<\/i> from 1961. What she knows about painting could fit in a can with room left over for the paint. <\/p>\n

Target Practice <\/i>makes a terrific case for the artists who cut, stomped, burned, melted and made fun of painting in the middle of the 20th century. Lest we get carried away by the thrill of it all, however, curator Michael Darling also included the self-righteously smug, always a big part of this movement. <\/p>\n

And when it comes to smug passing itself off as deep, nobody tops Ono.  With her Fluxus<\/a> credentials and her weird luck of marrying John Lennon, her knack for engaging banalities gave her a major career.<\/p>\n

The list of critics who’ve fallen for it is long. Here’s<\/a> Kenneth Baker discussing a billboard that accompanied Yes Yoko Ono<\/i><\/a> in 2002 and bore the legend, War Is Over! If You Want It — Love and peace from John and Yoko.<\/i><\/p>\n

Ono’s conceptual works are thought experiments. Performing them — or
\neven thinking about performing, which often amounts to the same thing — can
\nalter one’s sense of the power of inner reorientation. Do we want war to be
\nover or merely think we do?
\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Be the ball, Kenneth. Visualize world peace. Up with people. We are the world. <\/p>\n

The problem with the world is, it continues to be the world. <\/p>\n

Stephen Crane<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A man said to the universe:
\n
“Sir I exist!”
\n
“However,” replied the universe,
\n
“The fact has not created in me
\n
A sense of obligation.”
\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Back to Ono. Painting to Hammer a Nail<\/i> invites the audience to pick up a nail and pound it into a wood panel painted white. Why this exercise qualifies as an attack on painting is beyond me. It has nothing to do with painting. It’s all about Ono telling people what to do. <\/p>\n

But over the weekend, this oft-seen piece took a weird turn. In Seattle, people didn’t follow her instructions. They started to, but then they gave up.<\/p>\n

Here’s the piece on Friday:<\/p>\n

\"tpohno1.jpg\"<\/span>Here it is Tuesday:<\/p>\n

\"tpohno2.jpg\"<\/span>Instead of a place for pounding out the artist’s message, it became a community bulletin board. (Anybody seen my puppy?) Credit for inspiring it goes to Ono, as all of it qualifies as a homage.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Review of Target Practice: Painting Under Attack 1949-78 (here). Included in the exhibit is Yoko Ono’s Painting to Hammer a Nail from 1961. What she knows about painting could fit in a can with room left over for the paint. Target Practice makes a terrific case for the artists who cut, stomped, burned, melted and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}