Yoko Ono’s new show overturns artistic norms brilliantly

First things first, before you hear about the new exhibit “Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, a story: In late 1971 Ono took out an ad in the Village Voice for her upcoming “one-woman show” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

- Christopher Borrelli, Tribune News Service

The show would run two weeks. The exhibition catalogs cost $I. What was unusual about this was that, as far as MOMA was concerned, there was no Yoko Ono show. Ono had never exhibited work at MOMA and was not being asked to exhibit now.

But on Dec. I, on the opening date of her “show,” Ono had a man wearing a sandwich board parade in front of the museum, explaining: Ono released thousands of flies in MOMA, each one scented with a perfume worn by the artist; a photographer has also been tasked with documenting the path of the flies. This was not a prank. Ono had indeed released a jug of flies at MOMA, albeit outside, in the sculpture garden out back. MOMA, forced to respond, taped a copy of the ad in its ticket window with a note: “This is NOT here.” Except, of course, it was.