In ‘Sky Piece to Jesus Christ’ (1965) the members of a chamber orchestra are wrapped in gauze bandages, while playing Charles Gounod’s ‘Petite Symphonie’ from 1885. Yoko Ono views the sky as the epitome of freedom in contrast to the inner and outer bonds visualized during the performance. The performance is further explained in the related video interview ‘A Thing Called Life’.

Yoko Ono (b. 1933) is a Japanese avant-garde artist and musician. Ono was born in Tokyo, but moved to New York when she was 18, becoming becoming an influential practitioner of conceptual and performance art in the 1960s and consequently one of the most important representatives of the fluxus movement. As a musician, Ono embarked on a music career with Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band (1970) and also collaborated with huband and artistic partner, musician John Lennon (b.1940-s.1980), on Grammy Award winning albums such as ‘Double Fantasy’ (1980). In 1989, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City presented a retrospective of Ono’s work, and in 2000 the retrospective, ‘Yes Yoko Ono’, opened at the Japan Society Gallery in New York City and traveled extensively thereafter. In 2015, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City presented a retrospective of her early art. Among several prestigious awards, Ono received a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 2009 Venice Biennale.

Recorded at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark in 2013.

Camera: Klaus Elmer, Nicolaj Jungersen & Mathias Nyholm
Edited by: Kamilla Bruus
Colourgrade: Honey Biba Beckerlee
Produced by: Marc-Christoph Wagner
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2013

Supported by Nordea-fonden