With a little help from Yoko: We All Shine On

Written by Chris Davis
Thursday, 29 October 2009 10:45

Yoko Ono Lennon lives in New York City, but can usually be found in any one of dozens of cities across the globe. She was in London recently when she spoke by phone about the We All Shine On exhibit of John Lennon drawings coming to Greenwich Oct. 30-Nov. 1.

Ms. Ono Lennon was on a promotional tour of her new album, Between My Head and the Sky, which she co-produced with her son Sean, who is 33 now. At 76, Ms. Oko Lennon shows no signs of letting up. She says that regardless of where she is, she tries to take a long walk for exercise every day. As the lyrics in one of her new futuristic techno songs go: “Life can be so beautiful, especially after you’ve spent a lot of years with it.”

“I have all of these things that I’m doing now,” she said, but her new album is “very unique in the sense that I did it with my son.”

He came up with the songs, produced and was music director, she explained. “And he did a very, very good job,” she added.

It was Sean had come to her and said, “It’s about time that you do your own album again.” Despite her busy schedule, she agreed to do it because it might give her son’s new company — Chimera Music — a boost.

“I thought it would be a little helpful,” she said. “But actually what happened was, I was helped more.”

How so? “We helped each other, let’s put it that way. I wasn’t expecting that I’d get a lot of help from my son. I was just giving help. But no, it was a very nice kind of partnership.”

How did the idea for the show of John Lennon’s artwork come about?

“The idea came about because I thought of it,” she said. “As most of the things I do usually do. John always wanted to have an exhibition of his artwork. One of the reasons was: He was an artist. He started in art and art school and then he got into rock ‘n’ roll.”

John tried to have a show of his artwork, but found it impossible, she said. “Because he was attempting to have an exhibition after he was already very famous as a rocker,” Ms. Ono Lennon explained. “Most galleries in the art world just didn’t take him seriously.”

“I don’t think the critics wanted to deal with it,” she said. “There’s a certain kind of elitism in the art world, just like in music world. They felt that this was just a rocker trying to do something. It doesn’t really mean it’s serious art. So they never did anything about it. John was not very happy about that.”

But in a way, it turned out to be a blessing. His art stayed pure, she said, it “wasn’t ruined by what those critics would say.... We artists are human too. They can say I don’t think they should use the color red, and we think, red was very bad.”

When John died, there were two things that she knew she had to do: One was to finish the Milk and Honey album and put that out. The next was to put make a show of his artwork. We All Shine On is the fulfillment of that promise.

The exhibit showcases more than 100 works created by the legendary Beatle rhythm guitarist and composer between 1968 and 1980, including serigraphs, lithographs, and etchings. The show features a mix of originals and reproductions authorized and signed by Ms. Ono Lennon.

“Well, you know there were many beautiful, beautiful works,” Ms. Ono Lennon said. “I just picked works I thought proper and appropriate for the first series, because you have to give a real bang for the first series otherwise they will never come back again.”

She picked the works “that show he had a sense of humor, and warmth and love and all the things that he wanted to communicate to the world.”

The humor shines through in works like “Consult the Stars.” A man sits in a chair watching the phone over his shoulder with a frown. The caption reads, “He tried to consult the stars, but no one returned his calls.”

In “Power to the People,” a crowned Lennon-like statue of liberty stands on the water raising a clenched fist.  And in “The War Is Over” the Lennons sit on an empty box holding “Peace” signs, wearing nothing but mops of shaggy hair.

Yoko Ono was born in Tokyo and her family lived in San Francisco and New York before returning to Tokyo where they stayed during World War II. At age 18, Ms. Ono returned to New York and studied poetry, music and philosophy at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y. She has been creating experimental art ever since.

John Lennon once described her to TIME Magazine as “the world’s most famous unknown artist: everybody knows her name, but nobody knows what she does.”

Her “Imagine Peace Tower,” a pillar of light emerging from a wishing well, in Reykjavik, Iceland, is lit every year on October 9, John Lennon’s birthday, and turned off on December 8, the day he was murdered. Ms. Ono Lennon attends the ceremonies and says the City of Reykjvik is considering lighting the tower for other occasions such as Christmas and New Year’s.

As for the show in Greenwich this weekend, Ms. Ono Lennon hopes is helps others. “I was hoping that it would give some encouragement and inspiration to people,” she said. “So that they would do something of their own as well.”

We All Shine On will run from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1 at 20 Railroad Ave. For information call 888-ART-1969. Proceeds will benfit Neighbor to Neighbor, a non-profit community organization in Greenwich.