Yoko Ono.

Yoko Ono is an artist whose thought-provoking work challenges people’s understanding of art and the world around them. From the beginning of her career, she was a Conceptualist whose work encompassed performance, instructions, film, music, and writing.

Ono was born in Tokyo in 1933, and moved to New York in 1953, following her studies in philosophy in Japan. By the late 1950s, she had become part of New York Cityʼs vibrant avant-garde activities. In 1960, she opened her Chambers Street loft, where she and La Monte Young presented a series of radical performances and exhibited realizations of some of her early conceptual works. In 1961, she had a one-person show of her Instruction Paintings at George Maciunas’ legendary AG Gallery in New York, and later that year, she performed a solo concert at Carnegie Recital Hall of revolutionary works involving movement, sound, and voice. In 1962, she returned to Tokyo, where, at the Sogetsu Art Center, she extended her New York performance and exhibited her Instructions for Paintings. In 1964, Ono performed Cut Piece in Kyoto and Tokyo, and published Grapefruit, a book of her collected conceptual instruction pieces.

At the end of 1964, she returned to New York. In 1965, she performed Cut Piece during her concert at Carnegie Recital Hall, Bag Piece during a solo event for the Perpetual Fluxus Festival, and she performed Sky Piece to Jesus Christ during the Fluxorchestra concert at Carnegie Recital Hall that September. In 1966, she made the first version of Film No. 4 (Bottoms), and realized a collaborative installation The Stone, at the Judson Gallery. In the fall of 1966, she was invited to take part in the Destruction in Art Symposium in London, and later that year, held one-person exhibitions at the Indica Gallery, and at the Lisson Gallery the following year. During this period, she also performed a number of concerts throughout England.

In 1969, together with John Lennon, she realized Bed-In, and the worldwide campaign for peace War Is Over! (if you want it). Yoko Ono travels annually to Iceland for the lighting of her IMAGINE PEACE TOWER, which she created in 2007 as a permanent installation on Viðey Island, Iceland. She continues to work tirelessly for peace with her IMAGINE PEACE campaign. Today, Ono is widely recognized for her groundbreaking films and her radical music, recordings, concerts, as well as her performance art. Her films Fly, “RAPE”, Film No. 4 to name a few, are considered classics of 20th century film, and her music has finally been acknowledged as the genesis of much of the new wave of musical forms that have circled the world.

Ono has exhibited her work throughout the world, including major touring exhibitions, biennales and triennales. In 2009, she received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement from the Venice Biennale. Her major exhibitions have included YES YOKO ONO (2000 – 2001), organized by the Japan Society in New York, traveling throughout the United States, Japan, Canada and Korea, and YOKO ONO: HALF-A.WIND SHOW – A RETROSPECTIVE (2013) at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, traveling to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, Kunsthalle Krems in Austria, and Guggenheim Bilbao. YOKO ONO: ONE WOMAN SHOW, 1960-1971 opened at The Museum of Modern Art in New York in May 2015. Also in 2015, Ono had one-person exhibitions at Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (MOT), FAURSCHOU FOUNDATION BEIJING, and opened a major retrospective, YOKO ONO: Lumière de L’aube at MAC Lyon in France. In 2016, Ono’s permanent installation, SKYLANDING, was unveiled in Chicago’s Jackson Park, which was followed by a one-person exhibition at the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki, Greece later that year.

In 2017, Ono’s works were featured in YOKO ONO: Four Works for Washington and the World at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Prospect.4 in New Orleans, Tate Modern, C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea, as well as in her one-person exhibition, YOKO ONO: TRANSMISSION at Kunsthal Charlottenborg. A new version of Ono’s work, ONOCHORD, was presented earlier this year at Henningsvaer Lighthouse in Lofoten, Norway. Currently, Double Fantasy – John & Yoko is on view at the Museum of Liverpool. Forthcoming exhibitions in 2018 include those at the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam, Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, and the Museum der bildenden Künste (MdbK) in Leipzig.

Yoko Ono’s official website: imaginepeace.com

Festival venue / About.

Studio Miscetti Video is an ongoing project by STUDIO STEFANIA MISCETTI, and a curatorial exploration of video languages in contemporary art. Since 1986, the Studio has invited many artists to perform, install and project video works at the STUDIO STEFANIA MISCETTI gallery space as well as in contemporary art museums and public spaces, often with the support and patronage of local and international cultural institutions.

In 1996 the Studio pioneered the practice of projecting artists' works on historic buildings with the Projected Artists series in Rome, followed by further projections also in Florence, featuring interventions by Yoko Ono, Nancy Spero, Doris Bloom, William Kentridge, Paolo Canevari and Maurizio Pellegrin, and included as a side show the first Italian edition of The Yoko Ono Film Festival.

In 2006 STUDIO STEFANIA MISCETTI started curating and producing the video-only collective exhibition SHE DEVIL, now at its tenth edition. SHE DEVIL is a collection of video art that brings together a vast number of international female curators and artists, from the emerging to the established, providing a genuine platform of video art languages and a close analysis of the female world, exploring different topics at each edition.

Studio Miscetti has also hosted video art projects by Marina Abramovic, Orlan, Alfredo Jaar, Adrian Tranquilli, Gian Domenico Sozzi, Piero Steinle and Maurizio Pellegrin, among others.

Director: Stefania Miscetti

Over the years, assistant directors have been: Antonia Alampi, Daniela Cascella, Alexandra Corradini, Dobrila Denegri, Francesco Diaz, Tiziana Di Caro, Giulia Di Costanzo, Laura Giorgini, Veronica He, Pia Lauro, Elena Giulia Rossi, Valerio Santoro, Chiara Vigliotti.