Yoko Ono

小野洋子，一個(gè)神秘而綺情的女人。一個(gè)擅于在不動(dòng)聲色中制造藝術(shù)事件的女人。一個(gè)高齡仍專(zhuān)注表現(xiàn)出位的女人。裸露、和平，是她的御用主題。她是哲學(xué)家？文學(xué)家？藝術(shù)家？音樂(lè)人？抑或是電影人？很難下定論，但頒給她任何一個(gè)頭銜都不為過(guò)，因?yàn)樗谏鲜兰o(jì)60年代就能輕松駕馭上述每一個(gè)領(lǐng)域?？上У氖?，縱使才情萬(wàn)千，這樣一個(gè)奇女子卻一生為聲名所累，始終背負(fù)著其前夫———“甲殼蟲(chóng)樂(lè)隊(duì)”靈魂人物約翰·列儂的盛名。2004上海雙年展上，我們驚喜地發(fā)現(xiàn)了她的六件作品———2件裝置作品和4部電影短片，裸露、詩(shī)意、平和依舊在冷眼旁觀中綻放。作為一個(gè)藝術(shù)制造者從旁觀者的視角詮釋她的出位思想，這便是前衛(wèi)派小野洋子特立獨(dú)行的藝術(shù)風(fēng)格。
 
上世紀(jì)60年代初，才華橫溢的小野洋子已是當(dāng)時(shí)紐約前衛(wèi)藝術(shù)舞臺(tái)上的風(fēng)云人物。1964年，小野洋子在卡耐基誦廳第一次表演了她最為出名的行為作品《切片》：隨機(jī)挑選上臺(tái)的幾位觀眾被要求用剪刀將她的衣服裁成碎片，直至全身赤裸。那年，她32歲。1966年9月，她在倫敦再次表演了《切片》，在英國(guó)藝術(shù)界引起轟動(dòng)，觀眾席上的約翰·列儂于是見(jiàn)到了自己“一生里最重要的女人”。2003年9月，70歲的洋子在巴黎又一次表演了《切片》。她在臺(tái)上說(shuō)：“來(lái)吧，剪下我的衣服，隨便哪里；每個(gè)人剪下的面積不要大于一張明信片，并請(qǐng)將這碎片送給任一個(gè)你愛(ài)的人。”她解釋這場(chǎng)事隔37年的表演時(shí)說(shuō)：“1964年我第一次做它時(shí)，心里滿(mǎn)是憤怒和不安，但這次，我是懷著對(duì)你、對(duì)我、對(duì)全世界的愛(ài)而做的。”
 
即使被視作導(dǎo)致披頭士最終解散的罪魁禍?zhǔn)?，即使列儂為了她整整5年沒(méi)有公開(kāi)露面，即使在列儂死后20年仍不放棄宣傳他“愛(ài)與和平”的理想而被部分歌迷抨擊為借亡夫之名發(fā)財(cái)，但幾十年來(lái)小野洋子依舊在當(dāng)代藝術(shù)領(lǐng)域和音樂(lè)領(lǐng)域崇尚著自己的出位。日前，她在一個(gè)同性戀集會(huì)上參加了《每個(gè)男人都有一個(gè)愛(ài)著他的男人》的合唱，這是她20多年前所寫(xiě)的老歌《每個(gè)男人都有一個(gè)愛(ài)著他的女人》的“同性戀版”，僅以此曲表達(dá)對(duì)同性戀婚姻的支持。因此，即便飽受爭(zhēng)議，小野洋子仍然身體力行東方藝術(shù)家少有的表達(dá)方式和敘事模式。因?yàn)樵谒乃囆g(shù)視角里，藝術(shù)品和欣賞者都被她絕非本意卻絕對(duì)自然地設(shè)計(jì)好了，沿著她的思路進(jìn)行展示和觀察，枯燥而乏味，卻異常冷靜地客觀而真實(shí)。
 
本屆雙年展上，在美術(shù)館一樓展出的《愿望樹(shù)》是小野洋子多年來(lái)一直堅(jiān)持的一項(xiàng)生活裝置作品。“愿望樹(shù)”是日本的一項(xiàng)傳統(tǒng)民俗，人們會(huì)把各自的心愿寫(xiě)在小紙條上，綁在神社里的愿望樹(shù)上來(lái)祈禱自己的幸福。然而幸福本身是有多種指標(biāo)和方向的，收集愿望樹(shù)上的紙條，小野洋子自己也就變成了一個(gè)各種愿望的收藏者。
 
在美術(shù)館四樓放映廳播出的小野洋子四部電影短片中，我們?cè)僖淮蔚乖谒糜谥圃焖囆g(shù)事件的手腕下。在跟隨她的步調(diào)一起冷眼旁觀她一手炮制的藝術(shù)事件中，我們的慣性思維被擾亂，社會(huì)秩序被騷擾，既而對(duì)現(xiàn)有的世界觀提出質(zhì)疑。
 
電影《蒼蠅》用了所有的膠片展示了一位寂然不動(dòng)的女士，看上去幾乎是在昏睡。惟一運(yùn)動(dòng)的東西是一只蒼蠅，鏡頭跟著它停留在她身體的不同部位。這部電影是如此無(wú)聊，鏡頭隨著蒼蠅而移動(dòng)，視覺(jué)隨著鏡頭而移動(dòng)。洋子把這部影片描述為自傳體的篇章，并選擇了一種引人注目的精妙方式來(lái)表達(dá)她自己。
 
電影《末端》中，洋子把她在紐約的藝術(shù)家和音樂(lè)家朋友們集合在一起，拍下了他們裸體在路上走來(lái)走去的場(chǎng)景。又是無(wú)聊而樸素的鏡頭。但也許這部電影最讓人驚訝的地方在于：這是你每天在大街上都能看到的人和事物———但他們?nèi)渴浅嗦愕摹?br /> 
電影《強(qiáng)奸》是洋子最復(fù)雜也是最迷人的一部片子。根據(jù)設(shè)想，攝制組任選了一位在大街上碰到的婦女———倫敦的一個(gè)講德語(yǔ)的女人。攝影機(jī)窮追不舍地跟到她的公寓。女人由最初的好奇、合作變成沮喪和困怒。一切只能使觀眾導(dǎo)出這樣的困惑：這個(gè)女人被跟蹤，還是她是個(gè)演員？我們聽(tīng)不懂她的語(yǔ)言，但我們能明白她的行為和表情。影片試圖探討攝像機(jī)對(duì)隱私的侵犯問(wèn)題，并進(jìn)一步研究我們對(duì)刺探別人隱私的嗜好。
 
這就是小野洋子，一個(gè)被約翰·列儂稱(chēng)為“世界上最有名的不為人知的藝術(shù)家”，在71歲高齡的年紀(jì)，依舊專(zhuān)注在自己的出位世界里，精妙、細(xì)致、冷眼旁觀地雕刻著讓人目眩的裸露和真實(shí)。
 
Few women in the history of rock & roll have stirred as much controversy as Yoko Ono. Although her romance with John Lennon was hardly the only factor straining the relationships between the individual Beatles, she made a convenient scapegoat for the group's breakup, and was repeatedly raked over the coals in the media for the influence she held over Lennon, both in his life and his music. Ono's own work as an artist and musician didn't mitigate the public's enmity toward her; to the average man on the street, her avant-garde conceptual art seemed bizarre and ridiculous, and her highly experimental rock & roll (which often spotlighted her primal, caterwauling vocals) was simply too abrasive to tolerate. That view wasn't necessarily universal (or true), and in fact the merits of her work are still hotly debated. Regardless of individual opinion, Ono has left a lasting legacy; she was an undeniably seminal figure in the history of performance art, and elements of her music prefigured the arty sides of punk and new wave (whether she was a direct influence is still debated, although the B-52's did admit to drawing from her early records). Moreover, between Lennon's assassination and the myriad drubbings she's taken in the press and the court of public opinion, an alternate portrait of Ono as a strong, uncompromising survivor has emerged in more recent years.
 
Although her link with John Lennon will always be foremost in the public's mind, Ono's own life story is fascinating in its own right. She was born February 18, 1933, into a wealthy Japanese family in Tokyo. Her childhood was somewhat lonely and isolated; her father, a banker and onetime classical pianist, was transferred to San Francisco a few weeks before she was born, and her socialite mother was often busy throwing elaborate parties. She didn't meet her father until age two, when the whole family moved to San Francisco. However, they returned to Tokyo three years later to avoid the anti-Japanese backlash that was beginning in the United States in response to Japan's growing military expansionism. Ono was educated at the Gakushuin School, the most exclusive private school in Japan (the Emperor's sons were her classmates). She began classical piano lessons at a very young age, and later received vocal training in opera. In 1945, her mother took the family to the countryside to escape Tokyo, in time to survive the massive Allied bombing of the city; however, rich city dwellers were unwelcome, and the Ono children were often forced to beg for food.
 
After the war, Ono's father transferred to New York, and she moved to the U.S. in 1952, where she studied music at Sarah Lawrence College. During this time, Ono became enamored of classical avant-gardists like Schoenberg, Webern, and especially Cage. She also began dating Juilliard student Toshi Ichiyanagi, who shared her interests and became her husband (over her family's objections) in 1956. The couple moved to Manhattan, and Ono made ends meet by teaching Japanese art and music in the public school system, among other sporadic jobs (she'd rejected her parents' wealth and the attendant lifestyle). The couple's Chambers Street loft soon became a hot spot in the nascent downtown New York art scene; Ono frequently staged &happenings& (sometimes in partnership with minimalist composer LaMonte Young) that featured music, poetry, and other performance, and John Cage used the loft space to teach classes in experimental composition. During this period, Ono's art was largely conceptual, sometimes existing only in theory or imagination; she created a series of instructional pieces suggesting nonsensical activities, which were later published in book form as Grapefruit in 1964. Her first solo show was at George Maciunas' gallery in mid-1961, but the same year, Ichiyanagi and Ono separated, with the former returning to Japan. That November, Ono performed at the Carnegie Recital Hall (not the main hall), an event that featured a miked-up toilet flushing at various points throughout the show. It received negative reviews, however. With her parents' encouragement, Ono returned to Japan in March 1962, seeking a resolution to her marriage.
 
Once in Japan, Ono became lonely and depressed; not only was her marriage effectively over, but she received more negative reviews for her performances in conjunction with John Cage. After an overdose of pills, she was committed to a mental institution and kept under extremely heavy sedation. Fortunately, she was rescued by Anthony Cox, a jazz musician, film producer, and friend of LaMonte Young's who had traveled to Japan hoping to study calligraphy with her. Cox threatened to publicize the callous treatment Ono had received at the institution (her sedative dosage was abnormally high), and secured her release; the two became romantically involved, and when Ono became pregnant, she made her divorce from Ichiyanagi official and married Cox. Their daughter Kyoko was born in 1963, but Cox's sometime volatility put a strain on the relationship, and they separated in 1964. Cox returned to New York, and Ono followed a few months later, after which the couple reconciled.
 
Once back in New York, Ono resumed her art career to considerable attention from the avant-garde community; by this time, George Maciunas had become the leader of an art movement dubbed Fluxus, whose philosophies were compatible with (and even influenced by) Ono's, prizing abstraction and audience interaction. Ono performed at the Carnegie Recital Hall for a second time in early 1965, and debuted her seminal &Cut Piece,& in which audience members were invited to cut off pieces of her clothing with scissors. In September 1966, she traveled to England for an art symposium, and &Cut Piece& helped make her a sensation in the London art world. In November, she got her own exhibition at the famed Indica Gallery, which was ardently patronized by John Lennon. Lennon was impressed by her work, particularly a piece where the viewer was required to climb a ladder and hold up a magnifying glass to read a small inscription on the ceiling that said &Yes!& The two read each other's writings, and Lennon financed an exhibition in which Ono painted various everyday objects white and cut them in half. In the meantime, Ono and Cox had begun making experimental films, usually centered on the repetition of simple movements; their fourth effort, Bottoms, consisted of 365 close-ups of nude buttocks (the idea was to fill the screen with motion when the subjects walked). British film censors were scandalized, and Ono became an even more notorious public figure with &Wrapping Event,& in which she wrapped the lion statues beneath Nelson's column in Trafalgar Square with white cloth and tied herself to one. She also sang in concert with pioneering free jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman at the Royal Albert Hall. The avant-garde was becoming increasingly suspicious of her visibility, which only intensified when Ono and Lennon began having an affair that spring.
 
Fans of Lennon the pop musician couldn't understand what he saw in Ono, but it's important to know that Lennon was an art student prior to falling in love with rock & roll, and had long harbored an interest in avant-garde art. The difficulty with understanding Ono's art was that its impact came largely from her ideas; from putting new contextual frames around everyday objects, or asking her audience to complete an experience with their own imaginations. For example, most of Ono's pieces were white, so that the audience could imagine their own colors (or, in the case of her all-white chess set &Play It By Trust,& to create ambiguity); even her so-called &Blue Room& was all-white (viewers were supposed to stay in the room until it turned blue). Her first musical composition, 1955's &Secret Piece,& existed only in her mind (she was unable to transcribe the notes of a bird song effectively), and, in 1968, she announced a 13-day dance festival that would take place entirely in the imaginations of anyone who participated. In 1971, she took things a step further by presenting an imaginary art exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art, and filmed the spectators as the real works of art. As an artist, Ono dealt in concepts, not craft (i.e., practiced, developed technique and training in a specific medium). Her work wasn't what most people recognized as art, which was why many Beatles fans dismissed her as a talentless charlatan. Lennon, on the other hand, saw someone who could help him find a new direction.
 
Lennon and Ono's first musical collaboration was on the highly experimental Unfinished Music, No. 1: Two Virgins, which was recorded around the beginning of their affair and released toward the end of 1968. None of Lennon's fans knew what to make of any aspect of the album; not the odd snippets of noise, faint dialogue, and sounds from the immediate environment, and not the fully nude photographs of the couple on the record jacket, taken from the front and rear. They were further dismayed with Lennon's participation in Ono's bizarre public events, such as appearing together in black plastic bags as a statement about judging by appearances. (Ono herself long suspected that fans' hostility was due to their discomfort seeing Lennon with a woman who was not only strong-willed, but of a different race.) After Ono's divorce from Cox, the couple married in Gibraltar on March 20, 1969, and took advantage of the publicity surrounding their honeymoon to hold &Bed-Ins for Peace& in Amsterdam and Montreal (the latter of which produced the single &Give Peace a Chance&). Cox was later able to gain custody of Kyoko, pointing to Lennon and Ono's drug intake, and disappeared with the child, whom Ono would not see again for 25 years.
 
The second Lennon/Ono album, Unfinished Music, No. 2: Life With the Lions, was released not long after their wedding; it spotlighted Ono's cathartic, wailing vocal improvisations, as well as addressing her first of several miscarriages. It was quickly followed by The Wedding Album, one side of which featured more Ono improv, the other of which consisted of nothing but the couple calling each other's names. Over the next few years, Lennon and Ono continued their peace activism, and entered primal-scream therapy with Dr. Arthur Janov, which began to inform both of their individual careers. In 1970, they each recorded an album backed by the Plastic Ono Band; predictably, Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band was the less structured, more avant-garde of the two. Ono followed it in 1971 with the double-LP Fly, which featured more conventionally structured songs as well as her typical experimentalism. 1972 brought the Lennon/Ono protest-song album Sometime in New York City, which was roasted for the simplicity of its sentiments. Ono returned in 1973 with two of her strongest solo statements, the brutally intense, explicitly feminist Feeling the Space and the more varied Approximately Infinite Universe, both of which featured less musical involvement from Lennon. Perhaps that was symptomatic of the problems the couple had been having; they split up for a year and a half toward the end of 1973, exhausted from their constant time together and their battles with U.S. immigration over Lennon's threatened deportation. Ono recorded a more accessible album, A Story, in 1974, but it was shelved and remained unavailable until 1997.
 
The couple got back together in early 1975, and Ono was finally able to bear a child, Sean Taro Ono Lennon, who was born on John's birthday, October 9. Lennon dropped out of show business for several years to raise his son and effectively become a house-husband, while Ono took charge of his business affairs. Although she contributed some of her most accessible songs to his 1980 comeback album Double Fantasy, she did not return to solo recording until after Lennon's assassination on December 8, 1980. The harrowing, grief-stricken Season of Glass was released the following year to highly complimentary reviews. Ono followed it in 1982 with the more hopeful, pop-oriented It's Alright (I See Rainbows), and had a minor success with the single &Never Say Goodbye.& 1985's Starpeace continued that optimistic trend, and teamed Ono with producer Bill Laswell and other downtown New York scenesters, but failed to connect as her previous two efforts had.
 
Ono gradually returned to visual art, creating installations and also exploring photography. Interest in her previous work led to several retrospectives over the course of the '90s, and in 1992 Rykodisc reissued her complete back catalog on CD, as well as the six-CD box set retrospective Onobox. In 1995, she recorded a new album for Capitol called Rising, which featured son Sean and recalled the harsh experimentalism of her early recordings. The same year, her musical play New York Rock debuted off-Broadway. 2001 brought another new album, Blueprint for a Sunrise, which updated the feminist tone of Feeling the Space while being somewhat more accessible. V2 reissued several of her albums once again in early 2007.