Yoko On - War is Over ! ( if you want it ) at the MCA

Yoko Ono War is Over ! ( If you want it ) MCA Sydney Nov 2013 – Feb 2014 Allow plenty of time to see and plan for repeated visits to this engrossing , enthralling exhibition at the MCA. The exhibition has invaded the whole third floor of the Museum and also has a section on the fourth floor .There are large crowds and prebooking is recommended . Even the MCA entrance stairs are emblazoned with the name of the exhibition. The title of the exhibition comes from massive billboard posters that Ono and her husband, Beatle John Lennon, placed across the world’s cities in Christmas 1969 as a message and gesture of peace. War Is Over! (If You Want It) covers fifty years of Ono’s work as an avant-garde conceptual artist and was a four year project for curator Rachel Kent. Yoko Ono’s works range from tiny delicate objects ( eg the cricket installation ) , with a joyful ,optimistic , fragile lightness, to large heavy works such as ‘Corner Painting’ and the ‘Morning Beams and Cleaning Piece – Riverbed ‘. The astonishing breadth and depth of her creativity - drawing , painting , writing ,music , sculpture and film for instance - from the early 1960’s to now , is showcased .Some of the works are a cry for peace and preservation of the fragile environment of this delicate planet , others are eerie , some are autobiographical .A few of the works specifically encourage audience participation ( eg ‘Play It By Trust ‘,’ Windows’, ‘My Mommy is Beautiful’ ,’ Imagined Map Space’ and the Wishing Tree ). Highlights include the delicate atmosphere of ‘Doors and Sky Puddles’ .It is as if the weathered doors have been knocked over / exploded in a possible parallel universe (?) and brought puddles of fragile sky dripping onto the floor with them. And the beautiful ‘Windows’ encouraging us to write our dreams and wished for destination(s) and place the note in the giant suitcase. Cold , clinical lines define ‘Balance Piece’ ( 1998) where a giant magnet is used to ‘attract’ assorted everyday steel objects like frying pans etc to encourage us to use our right brain more. This is contrasted with the various textures , singing straight lines and effective use of shadows in ‘Morning Beams and Cleaning Piece , Riverbed’( 1996) . Play It By Trust at the start of the exhibition is a series of white chess tables and white chairs (redesigned for this MCA exhibition to link in with the Opera House aesthetic) with chessboards set up with all-white chess pieces.When I attended there were lots of people playing and chatting. The message Yoko Ono is sending about non-competitiveness and self analysis is fairly easy to decipher . ‘Touch me 111 ‘( 2008),addressing the violence perpetrated against women , is extremely unsettling .Individual parts of a woman’s body in silicone are in small wooden boxes on a raised platform. A bowl of water is placed at the end of the work and the viewers if they wish can wet their fingers and ‘touch’ the body . Strangely absorbing , at times chilling , ‘Cut piece’ , considered one of Yoko Ono’s most significant artworks today, is represented by screenings from 1965 and 2003. It invites audience members to cut pieces of her clothing away while she sits impassively on stage. We see the 1965 performance at Carnegie Hall and the 2003 version in Paris Another rather unnerving piece is ‘Family Album’ where individual items like a needle and thread , a hairbrush , shoes , are in bronze which has been painted with red blood like pigment . .One of the items is a pair of round rimmed glasses with red finger marks on the glass , immediately triggering thoughts of John Lennon ‘s tragic assassination. ‘My Mommy is Beautiful’ is a huge wall covered in post-it notes , drawings etc in which viewers are invited to place private messages of love hope forgiveness and reconciliation to their mothers. A huge spectrum of emotions from love and thanks to anger and sadness develops . ‘Telephone in Maze ‘is a clear Perspex participatory installation where people can walk carefully and gently into a small, strange maze .‘We’re all water’ is a huge line of bottles filled with water against a wall. Map Peace, 2003/2013 is two large walls of maps, on which visitors can stamp if they are inclined , in assorted languages, “Imagine Peace”. ‘Helmets – Pieces of Sky ‘ ( 2001 /2013) is another participatory work ,: in a large room WW11 military helmets are suspended upside down , each filled with small pieces of blue sky jigsaw puzzle. Visitors are encouraged to take one small piece away with them in the hope that perhaps one day in the future they will eventually return to build a new sky together. This is linked in with Sky TV ( 1966/ 2013) a TV in the first gallery space that shows the sky above ( relayed from a video camera on the roof) . ‘Endangered Species ‘ is a fascinating room , in some ways like an excavation of Pompeii, a plea for peace and preservation of the environment. A family with a dog is shown seated on a bench , presented as if unearthed and preserved .There are also broken bits of pottery. Ono’s films ( ‘Bottoms ‘, etc ) are shown in a separate room one could spend hours and hours watching .There is also a large room with chairs, headsets etc , heavily decorated in early 1960’s style ( record and magazine covers etc ) which has some of Ono’s interviews etc screening and also a playlist of her music to listen to . Ono’s quest to use art to make the world a better place, here at least momentarily , has succeeded I think in this astonishing , vibrant exhibition. War Is Over (if you want it): Yoko Ono is at Museum of Contemporary Art until 23 February 2014. Tickets are available at mca.com.au