I interviewed Yoko Ono. For the Globe & Mail when she cruised into town for the Bed-In anniversary where she shacked up with Lennon at Montreal's Queen E hotel. I don't have a photo of myself with her because... well, I don't do that, so here's a picture of just me. Isn't it all nice and literary looking? Susan Moss took it when we were covering Pop Montreal together for SPIN.com all impromptu and spontaneous. So yeah, Yoko. She was one of the coolest women I've met, more than a muse -- an artist and an activist and way ahead of her time. (I can do a pretty good Yoko imitation now, actually!)
Here's the piece in its uncut glory:
Forty years ago, celebrity newlyweds John Lennon and Yoko Ono shacked up at Montreal's Queen Elizabeth Hotel. They put on pyjamas, cleared out the furniture (the bed stayed), and invited a curious world into Room 1742 to witness their week-long Bed-In for Peace. To raise public awareness for world peace and protest the Vietnam War, the beatific lovers received hundreds of visitors and wrote and recorded hit song "Give Peace a Chance." Today, as John and Yoko's peace message remains indisputably relevant, locals of a certain age seem to remember the Montreal bed-in with the wonder and nostalgia of a dream. Its emotional resonance lives on.
As such, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts celebrates the Bed-In's 40th birthday with an exhibit called The Peace Ballad of John and Yoko. (The show opens tomorrow and runs until June 21. Admission is free.) Ono -- an accomplished conceptual artist who will receive a lifetime achievement award at the Venice Biennale in June -- breezed in from New York for a press conference yesterday. Wearing a black blazer and tiny sunglasses, hat perched coquettishly atop her head, she looks like a chic pixie. Soft-spoken and smiling at 76, she sweetly and vaguely answered a dozen brief questions about peace, art, and Lennon from the hundred-or-so media members hoping to catch a glimpse of the controversial pop icon.
"The idea was to allow people to invade our space, in a way, our private space, and make it into art," said Ono about the bed-in during an earlier phone interview. "Both of us were very shy people. But we did it."
The interactive museum exhibit is complete with a bed, piano, and soundscape exploring [the couple’s artistic and political collaboration and the legacy of songs like “Imagine.” Also featured are personal drawings, photos, films, and works of art -- many loaned by Ono.
“The thing is, I'm not one of those people who, when a friend comes to my apartment I say, 'Look at this, isn't this great, John gave it to me,’” she giggled on the phone. “But this is a very important show, it is speaking of imagining peace, so of course I will try to accommodate."
John and Yoko's Montreal bed-in was actually their second; their first was in Amsterdam, Holland two months prior. Both were part of Ono and her late husband’s “international campaign for peace,” which included concerts, billboards, and that famous New York Times ad. (It read: “War is Over! If You Want it. Happy Christmas from John and Yoko.”) Today, Ono carries on their life's work. In 2007, she unveiled the Imagine Peace Tower in Reykjavík, Iceland -- a massive tower of light in Lennon's memory.
"The awareness of peace is very, very strong around the world now," she said. "Together, it's making a big force. I call it a sort of peace industry. When we started doing it, there were very few people who really wanted to be active in getting world peace, and now I think ninety-nine percent of people in the world are thinking about it."
Such vaguely optimistic pronouncements often get Ono in trouble with literal-minded critics, who reprove her for equating visualization with action. (During the press conference, for instance, she said we have to just imagine world peace to make it a reality, and “It’s time for action! Action is peace. I love you!” ) But whether or not you’re down with esoteric philosophy, this idealism is what makes John and Yoko's message effective and timeless. It’s also a key part of her art. Plus, she's making art, not public policy.
"Artists are freer than politicians who are bound by red tape or whatever," she said about art's role in peacemaking. "We can do a lot. Also, we work not just on a conscious level but on a subconscious level as well.”
Ono’s own artistic career has been all about risk with purpose. Born in Japan, during the 1960s she was associated with the Fluxus movement and New York’s avant-garde arts scene, known for her ahead-of-her-time performance art. (In 1964’s Cut Piece, members of the audience cut off pieces of her clothing.) She’s also made her mark in photography, film, and music (with the Plastic Ono Band and other projects).
"I always wanted to surpass myself, I was always thinking about what's next," she recalled. "Going to the next level in terms of music, or performance art, or whatever... I wanted to push the horizon of what's possible in each medium. That was my life, to take risks in my artwork all the time. And then I met John -- and the two rebels met.”
Ono said Lennon helped her grow from a "lone wolf just working by myself" to understanding how to create as a team. "It's very unusual, I think, that it happens that way,” she mused about collaborating with her husband. “We were very lucky. Actually, John was more experienced with working with a partner, like Paul [McCartney] and all that. So I had to learn that from him. 'Partner, OK!'"
Recently, she's brought those skills back to the studio, where she's recording with their 33-year old son, musician Sean Lennon. "It's working out very well," she said proudly. (Sean Lennon also played on his mother’s 1995 album, Rising.)
Although Montreal wasn’t the couple’s first bed-in destination choice (Lennon had been denied entry into the U.S. because of a marijuana arrest) Ono shares the public’s soft spot for that city at that moment in time. “Canada meant a lot to us hippies in those days! We had a kind of respect and feeling of romanticism towards Canada for being a country where people are more together and liberal,and the ideas are wise and progressive. Montreal, especially, means a lot to me because of all the memories I have with John. It was our honeymoon as well.”
