Yoko Ono—Between the Sky and My Head

The Baltic is situated on the banks of the river Tyne, close to the Millennium Bridge. From the opposite side of the river the side of the Baltic building is covered with a large white hoarding with the words "Imagine Peace".

Inside the exhibition covered three floors. (the third floor being a viewing area looking down onto part of the exhibition, representing the sky).

The exhibition opens with a series of ink drawings executed by Yoko between 1994 and 2001. There are 113 drawings in total but the images themselves aren't the focus. Rather, the concept of these artworks lies in their framing. Our minds cannot perceive of reality without framing.

The exhibition is billed as a retrospective of Yoko's work but very little of her 1950s and 60s work is displayed. Her involvement with Fluxus is only just mentioned on an introduction board. There were a series of 'instruction pieces' displayed on a wall, reminding us of Yoko's unique and clever way of perceiving the world and our involvement in it. However, none of her installations were reproduced for this exhibition. We expected to see Half a Room, Hammer a Nail and of course the ladder leading to Yes on the ceiling which so captured the imagination of John Lennon. Half a Room was represented by one small B&W photograph. Her 1997 retrospective at MoMA in Oxford (Have You Seen the Horizon Lately) did a much better job of covering this period.

Many of her early 1960s works are here as well, including a picture of Half a Room, showing Yoko in a room where all the items within are just a half of what they normally are (e.g. half a chair). This would have been a great exhibit but sadly we have just one photograph. A lot of these early writings appeared in Yoko's book Grapefruit.

The rest of the exhibition was certainly more interesting. The centrepiece on the first level was the fantastic Amaze, first created in 1971. Consisting of panels of Plexiglass, it is a maze where the centrepiece is a square light which reflects beautifully across the entire piece when you reach the centre.

Yoko Ono: Amaze 1971—2008
Plexiglass, metal and wood, plastic cube light box with a glowing white light inside. 244 x 488 x 488 cm.
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
Copyright: Yoko Ono
Photographer: Colin Davison

A television screen tucked away in a corner had John & Yoko's 1969 film Rape showing continuously. At 77 minutes long, perhaps the organisers could have provided a chair or two? Still, it was an opportunity to view this rarely seen and very disturbing film.

Many of you may be aware of the recent disappearance of the film's star Eva Majlata in Hungary. Seeing this film and wondering how she is now was quite a potent experience.

Fly was also shown, in a special room, with several screens showing the film at different points. That certainly made it easier to watch as I personally find it a bit too 'dirty old man watching' for my taste—but maybe that was the point John & Yoko were making?

Other films featured include OnoChord, Freedom, and Outtro. Outtro is a very moving piece featuring a picture of John, Yoko and Sean from 1980 in front of a backdrop of trees. Gradually, the picture of them fades until all that is left are the trees, to the sound of birds singing.

A TV is in one corner showing a picture of the sky—called Sky TV and originally created in 1967.

Moving on, the next set of exhibits focuses on the history of the Family of Man is the history of violence.

Various objects are displayed, all with red paint representing the blood caused by violence. Objects such as bread board, coat hangers, and a pair of ladies shoes, all adorned by red paint - similar to the picture of John's glasses on Yoko's 1981 album Season of Glass. (The glasses were not on display here).

In this area the film Cut Piece was being shown on two television screens. Conceived in 1964, Cut Piece has Yoko sitting on a chair and members of the audience are invited to cut pieces of her clothing until nothing was left. The two TVs show the original event in New York in 1965 and the event in Paris a few years ago, running in tandem.

The last display on Level 3 is Touch Me 3. This consists of a rubber cast of a woman's headless body cut into pieces. Each piece is placed in its on black box and laid out as a body. The public are invited to touch her breasts, her stomach, her pubic area, etc. At some point while on display, someone damaged the toes but Yoko decided to leave the piece like this as a sign of the violence that women have faced.

Stepping out of the lift on Level 4 of the exhibition you see Wish Tree. Here, the public are invited to write a wish and hang it on the tree. This was very moving. The tree was adorned with hundreds of wishes mostly from children, which were wonderful to read.

To the side a television screen showed a film of the Bed In in 1969, and is the only other film to feature John, other than Outtro described earlier.

Play it by Trust, Yoko's very clever all white chess set, was displayed in the main exhibition area but on a giant scale. One suspects that the curators wished to enlarge this particular installation to fill a large gallery space but it misses the intensity of the original conception. This idea was originally conceived in 1966, and was put on film by John and Yoko as part of the 1971 film Imagine.

Yoko Ono: Play It By Trust (Marble Version) 1966—2007
White Carrara marble, 100 marble squares forming the base, 32 white marble chess pieces.
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
Copyright: Yoko Ono
Photographer: Colin Davison

The remainder of the exhibition was devoted to Yoko's more recent works and I found this to be quite exciting. The exhibits display Yoko's way of taking events and common human conditions and making us look at them in a new way. Birds for Gateshead invites us to "take a piece of the sky". These pieces are parts of a jigsaw puzzle and are placed inside WWII German helmets suspended from the ceiling. After death and destruction, we work together to rebuild our shared world. How many of us today have such a positive view of the future?

Sky Ladders features sets of step ladders at different heights and positions and was created for Liverpool in 2008.

My Mommy is Beautiful is an installation in which we are invited to write personal messages about our mothers and stick them on a wall. We all have mothers and mothers are traditionally viewed by all cultures as life-givers and unconditional love-givers. Such an installation reminds us of that simple yet powerful fact.

We're all Water is a display of 118 bottles, all alike, filled up with water, all to the same level and tagged with individual names. The names are famous. To name a few – Oscar Wilde, George W Bush, John Lennon, Sean Lennon, and Adolf Hitler. Yoko's right – we are all just water (or rather 55 to 60%) and her statement is a powerful one. But I can't help but think that it would be more powerful if she had mixed in some not-so famous names amongst the celebrities. We're All Water was created in 2006 and is a visual creation of the song which appeared on the album Some Time In New York City in 1972.

Yoko Ono: We Are All Water
118 glass bottles, water, ink on paper, wooden shelve, chair, table, cards, pens.
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
Copyright: Yoko Ono
Photographer: Colin Davison

There are other items as well and the whole exhibition is almost a retrospective of Yoko's work. Disappointingly, the exhibition lacks information about each display, unless you have the accompanying book, but maybe Yoko leaves the thinking to the individual about each display and let you—the public create your own ideas as to the concept.

All in all, the exhibition was enjoyable, and it was good to see a lot of people at the exhibition on the day of our visit.

On leaving the Baltic, you find a "Coffin Car" outside. A 1962 Daimler Hearse is there to take two people at a time on a 20-30 minute tour of Newcastle and Gateshead—and the whole exhibition and tour were free.

Coffin Car: Ride a coffin all over the city.

At the end we had an imaginary interview with Yoko. Now... Breathe.

--Terry Bloxham and Ernie Sutton

© 2010 British Beatles Fan Club