Yoko Ono
Music of the Mind
The Broad
May 23 – October 11, 2026
Yoko Ono is fortunate to have lived long enough (she is 93) to gain the popular appreciation and respect for her artistic practice that eluded her for much of her life, particularly after she met John Lennon in London in 1966. Prior to meeting Lennon, Ono was an important early conceptual artist and was part of the Fluxus group of artists (which included John Cage, Joseph Beuys and Nam June Paik, among others).
In the 1960s, with few exceptions (Frankenthaler, Krasner, Nevelson, Mitchell), women artists were often seen as lesser to the men who surrounded them. Ono was unfairly cast as the villain in the Beatles’ breakup and at various moments in John’s post-Beatle life and music career.
The exhibition that opened recently at the Broad Museum is an important corrective – her first ever in Southern California. Initiated by the Tate Modern, in cooperation with Ono’s studio and her archive, the exhibition presents a full picture of her artistic practice over a lifetime and makes a convincing case for her importance.
Yoko Ono, Peace is Power, Tate Modern, Blavaknik Building, 2024
For the Los Angeles exhibition, The Broad’s curators worked closely with the Tate and with Ono’s studio to add new elements. As a small example, when John and Yoko launched their campaign War Is Over, if you want it, they took out ad pages in newspapers such as The New York Times, and billboards in New York’s Times Square, as well as a billboard on Sunset Blvd., although there were no photos extant of that billboard. But researchers were able to reach out to one of the original photographers and get his print to exhibit in the museum (a copy of which you can buy in the Broad gift shop).
When you enter the first two rooms of the exhibition, you see some of the documentation of Ono’s early conceptual work, but it’s challenging to conjure what was essentially an ephemeral and personal performative work of art. I will not be surprised if any visitor thinks, I just don’t get this or What am I looking at?
Many of Ono’s early works appear as “instructions” or what today we would call “prompts” to make art – in many ways her work prefigures that of today’s contemporary artists who work with computers. Also, Ono was among the first, with LaMonte Young, to use sound as art.
Apple, 1966 Apple, acrylic pedestal with brass plaque Engraved: APPLE
What is so well done is that as the visitor continues through the exhibit, each room has artworks that demand viewer participation in order to become complete. What struck me is that Ono’s singular contribution to art history is conceptualizing an artistic practice dependent on community involvement, and the large role that striving for peace plays in her work and life.
Ono, born in 1933, was 12 when she witnessed the devastation of Tokyo, soon followed by the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She went on to study philosophy and attended Sarah Lawrence College in the U.S., where “ideas [were] at the core of her practice,” said chief curator Joanne Heyler.
Ono’s conceptual work replaced paint with language and sound. Among her celebrated early works were Cut Piece (members of an audience were invited to cut away pieces of her clothing as she sat on stage, revealing more about the audience than her) and Grapefruit (her artist book containing instructions on making art).
Peace is Power, 2017, Vinyl, photo by Joshua White.
With Lennon, Ono globalized her campaign for peace with Acorns for Peace (a circular bench in which two acorns were planted), and by staging what they called Bed-ins for Peace in Amsterdam and Montreal, as well as well as the advertising and billboard campaigns. This was not a momentary or specific anti-Vietnam war practice. It has continued throughout her life – and Imagine was made in that spirit. One of the more touching works is a series of German war helmets hung upside down like planters and filled with pieces of an image of blue sky.
There is some irony in the fact that Ono, a lifelong warrior for peace, was long reviled for creating dissension, disunity, and anger among the Beatles and their fans, and among all sorts of business and music people. But unpopular ideas often have that effect; not to mention how often women’s ideas and artwork have been devalued as a cover for misogyny.
After Lennon’s murder, Ono focused on making music, which is also featured in the exhibition. Nonetheless, Ono continued to believe that Peace is power. The Tate Modern curator Juliet Bingham spoke about “The idea of Optimism”present throughout Ono’s work.
Installation view, entrance to Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind, The Broad Museum, courtesy of The Broad Museum and Yoko Ono.
After having seen the exhibition, you may not know Ono better, but you will appreciate her lifelong drive to make participatory art and her campaigns for peace. In that spirit, the last word deserves to come from Ono, who said: “A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is a reality.”
Cover image: Cut Piece, 1964, filmed 1965, Film, 16mm, shown as video, black and white, sound, 8 min., 27 sec., Filmed by David Maysles (1932–1987) and Albert Maysles (1926–2015). All images courtesy The Broad. Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind. All works in the exhibition are by Yoko Ono and courtesy the artist unless otherwise noted.
