Painting to Shake Hands : Art by Yoko Ono

Avant Garde artist and peace activist Yoko Ono has released PAINTING TO SHAKE HANDS, an art film created exclusively for s[edition] for the 2012 exhibition TO THE LIGHT at the Serpentine Gallery in London.

What’s the Difference?

“There may not be much difference, between Chairman Mao and Richard Nixon, if we strip them naked,” Yoko Ono reminds us in this classic cut from the Plastic Ono Band’s Sometime in New York City LP. Chock full of revolutionary protest songs (from Attica State to Angela Davis) and stuffed with a petition to allow John to fight an unjust deportation, SINYC is like a musical time capsule capturing the last rebel yell from the era of the Sixties street-fighting man.

Feeling nostalgic for some Elephant’s Memory Band? It’s only a click away. It’s all free for your listening pleasure on Yoko’s Soundcloud site.

We’re all water from different rivers
That’s why it’s so easy to meet
We’re all water in this vast, vast ocean
Someday we’ll evaporate together

30 Years: John Lennon RIP

Image via Wikipedia

It has been thirty years since John Lennon was gunned down outside his New York City apartment. I’ll never forget the night it happened. I had been out partying for my 21st birthday (December 7th) with my good friend Fred. We got back to my one-room efficiency off-campus in Bloomington late that Sunday night. Still buzzing, we switched on the stereo to hear the news that John Lennon had been shot and killed. We couldn’t believe it. Instant buzz kill, we broke off the party with a mumble — neither one of us in the mood to continue our binge. A hell of a way to matriculate into adulthood.

The next day, in a cold winter rain, I stood beside my fellow IU students and professors who had gathered in the wet fields of Dunn Meadow to pay tribute to John. We stood, some weeped, all sang along to our favorite songs from a memorial radio broadcast over loud speakers.  “Imagine,” “War is Over,”  “Instant Karma,” “Revolution.”

That morning, I had pinned a “Yippie!” button — one that I had purchased a few summers prior during a trip to Chicago to attend the “Rock Against Racism” festival — onto my vintage black cashmere doorman’s coat. At the end of the day, as I limply marched back to my pad, I looked down to see that my Yippie! button had fallen off.  A naked wire semi-circle all that remained on my lapel. I had really loved that button, and held onto it as a token of the sixties revolution that I had just missed by accident of birth. Now, the button, that theater time, and my boyhood hero were never to be seen again. Never to be forgotten. Cosmic Giggle, I mused as I walked  back home alone.

Related articles

• John Lennon: Thirty Years Later & Still Relevant (chicagonow.com)
• Remembering the Night John Lennon Was Shot (cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Millions mark John Lennon’s death (mirror.co.uk)

Dylan’s note to INS on behalf of John & Yoko

“They inspire and transcend and stimulate,” Dylan wrote, and help “put an end to this mild dull taste of petty commercialism which is being passed off as artist art by the overpowering mass media. Hurray for John & Yoko.”

For more Lennon FBI files, click here.

Yoko’s Wish Tree

When You Wish Upon a Tree at the Hirshhorn

by Brandon Springer — Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden for Smithsonian.com

Some wish for their mothers. Some wish for their fathers. Some wish for siblings or friends, children or partners. Some wishes are rather rude. Some wishes are earnest and sweet.

Yoko Ono’s Washington D.C. Wish Tree is back in bloom in the Hirshhorn sculpture garden this summer.

The tree has stood in the sculpture garden since 2007. It is one of many wish trees around the world installed by Ono as a part of her international peace project IMAGINE PEACE (the name a reference to her late husband’s celebrated album and song).

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Sign Yoko’s No Guns Petition

On Mon 10 May 2010, in Imagine All The People, Written work, Yoko recommends, by admin

Dear Family of Peace
Too many innocent people & children are victims of tragic shootings.
Let’s stop criminals getting guns.
Yoko Ono Lennon
http://bit.ly/dmPRzh

Sign The Petition. Close The Loophole.
Background Checks for all sales at Gun Shows
http://bit.ly/NOguns

We Are Plastic Ono Band

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

We Are Plastic Ono Band

Originally uploaded by Yoko Ono official

An all-star cast joined an energetic Yoko Ono who brought the band that John built back together for a special concert: WE ARE PLASTIC ONO BAND, was presented at Brooklyn’s BAM, in the Howard Gilman Opera House, on February 16th.

The newly reconstituted YOKO ONO / PLASTIC ONO BAND featured:

Yoko Ono (vocals), Sean Lennon (guitar, bass, piano), Yuka Honda (keyboard), Keigo Oyamada (guitar, tenori-on, electronics), Shimmy Hirotaka Shimizu (guitar, bass), Yuko Araki (drums), Michael Leonhart (trumpet) and Erik Friedlander (cello)

Lobby Art Installations included some classic Yoko works:

Wish Tree for BAM (Yoko Ono – 2010)

Apple (Yoko Ono – 1966)

Play It By Trust (Yoko Ono – 1966/1998)

Film No.4 “Bottoms” (Yoko Ono – 1966)

Toilet Thoughts Film No.3 poster (Yoko Ono 1968)

“Sky”, “Dream”, “War Is Over!”, “Imagine Peace” banners (Yoko Ono)

Other featured works included:

Welcoming Birds

Animation by Jordan Galland | Illustration by Sean Lennon

Opening Film

by Jenny Golden & Sean Lennon

Here is how the night unfolded:

Act I

It Happened

Waiting For The D Train / Why

(with special guest Mark Ronson)

Between My Head and The Sky

Rising

(special guest Haruomi Hosono joins for remainder of Act I)

Walking On Thin Ice

Moving Mountains

Calling

Mind Train / Ask The Elephant

Higa Noboru

Act II

The Sun Is Down

Performed by Scissor Sisters

Animation by Yoji Kuri, from the film AOS (1964)

Edited by Keigo Oyamada

What A Bastard The World Is

Performed by Justin Bond

Oh Yoko

Performed by Gene Ween

Mulberry

Performed by Yoko Ono, Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore

FLY film by Yoko Ono/John Lennon (1970)

Yes, I’m Your Angel

Performed by Bette Midler with Thomas Bartlett, Jeff Hill,

Michael Leonhart, Sean Lennon, Marcus Rojas

Erik Friedlander, Keigo Oyamada and Shimmy Hirotaka Shimizu

Silverhorse

Performed by Paul Simon and Harper Simon

Hold On

Performed by Paul Simon and Harper Simon

Yer Blues

Performed by Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann, Jim Keltner

and Sean Lennon

Death of Samantha

Performed by Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann, Jim Keltner

and Sean Lennon

Don’t Worry Kyoko

Performed by Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann, Jim Keltner

and Sean Lennon

All songs written by Yoko Ono, except Oh Yoko and Hold On by

John Lennon, and Yer Blues by Lennon/McCartney.

WE ARE PLASTIC ONO BAND: LIVE!

WE ARE PLASTIC ONO BAND: LIVE! FEB 16, 2010 • 8PM

Originally uploaded by Yoko Ono official

You’ve heard the rumors, now come out and see for yourself. The inimitable YOKO ONO has put together the Plastic Ono Band and scheduled a live all-star show: WE ARE PLASTIC ONO BAND: LIVE! FEB 16, 2010 • 8PM. The impressive line up ncludes Justin Bond, Eric Clapton, Cornelius, Kim Gordon, Yuka Honda, Haruomi Hosono, Jim Keltner, Sean Lennon, Bette Midler, Thurston Moore, Mark Ronson, Scissor Sisters, Harper Simon, Paul Simon, Klaus Voormann & Martha Wainwright.
*****EXCLUSIVE  TICKET OFFER*****
THE FIRST HALF OF THE TICKETS ARE ON PRESALE
FOR FRIENDS OF IMAGINEPEACE.COM
from Monday 11 January at 10am
BOOK NOW! – CLICK HERE!
www.bam.org/weareplasticono
Enter Promotional Code: 12053
or Tel: 718-636-4100

THE SECOND HALF OF TICKETS
GO ON SALE TO GENERAL PUBLIC
from Tuesday 12 January at 10am
CLICK HERE!
www.bam.org/weareplasticono
or Tel: 718-636-4100

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Lennon Remembers

More than 932,000 people have been killed by guns in the U.S.A. since John Lennon was shot and killed on December 8, 1980.

Originally uploaded by Yoko Ono official

War Is Over: Show your colors

English

Originally uploaded by Yoko Ono official

Print & display in your window, school, workplace, car & elsewhere over the holiday season, and send as postcards to your friends.

If you don’t see your language here, then send us your translation of
WAR IS OVER!
IF YOU WANT IT
Happy Christmas from John & Yoko