Contemporary artists and their contributions to modern art

Yoko Ono and Her Art

Yoko Ono was born in Tokyo Japan in 1933. She came to America to study in college, and eventually made her home here. She became very influential in the artistic community in the 1960s, and her avant-garde type of artwork was very controversial but influential. She helped found the "Fluxus" group of artists, who tried to make their work different and meaningful. She works in many mediums like photography, real items (like ladders, signs, and even pieces of paper), and painting. She is probably best known for marrying John Lennon in 1969, but she worked as an artist before she met Lennon, and continues to put on art shows in galleries around the world.

The art work I have chosen is "Half a room - Hospital version" by Yoko Ono. It was completed in 1998, and is a montage photograph that was exhibited in Stockholm in the spring of 2004. The photograph shows a stark hospital room filled with things that would be common in a hospital room, like a bed, wheel chair, oxygen tank, table, etc., but they are all painted pure white, and they are all cut in half. She has used this "half a room" theme many times in her art, and this piece is a bit disturbing because it seems to make the viewer think of times when people go to the hospital, only this hospital is not prepared to really take care of their needs. She uses this "half" theme to show something is missing or gone, and that could be a loved one that went to the hospital and never returned. Ono's style is very modern and very commanding. Some of her artwork does not seem like art at all, it is just random everyday pieces grouped together, like helmets or pieces of paper, or words written right on a wall. This is her modern, avant-garde style, and it is not always attractive, but it is always different. This piece is stark and disturbing, and yet I did not want to stop looking at it, because I thought I might miss something, and not see just what Ono was trying to say with her work. I think her art is meaningful and a little weird at the same time.