Customer Reviews

Y E S Yoko Ono

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This book is wonderfully informative about Yoko and her art. If you want to open your mind and stop believing the racist and sexist garbage the media has shoveled out about her (and about any woman who dares be anything but a worshipping dormat for men- especially any Asian woman) this is absolute a must read book. Yoko was the first Asian woman who dared in the West to publically be a Feminist. She has inspired a whole generation of women in Japan to publically stand up for their rights. She is also an inspiration to many women in the West as well, she was an equal partner in her marriage with John, both their careers were of equal weight. She and John inspired people to stand up and protest for peace, and Yoko continues this activism. She is respected by both Israelis and Palestinians for her peace activism, through her art. She also uses her art to speak out in favor of feminism, In the 80's she also began to do art activism in support of Gay and Lesbian rights. The media critics are finally beginning to open their eyes past the racist and sexist stereotypes Yoko has been the victim of. This book goes a long way toward informing readers of the real Yoko Ono and her amazing range of artistic talent, intelligence and humanitarianism. She will someday be called one of the greatest talents and visionaries of our times. Read this book and find out why.

A thousand words are not enough and too many. Of the hundreds of art books I've bought, borrowed or stolen, this is the most elegant and *useful* one I've ever had. Munroe writes with economy and humor in language that crosses over boundaries between academia and the language of the gallery -- and everyone else who has wondered what sort of a book would attempt to encompass this wholly original and much maligned multimedia artist. This is the book to have!

And the CD *rocks*. I suspected that was Sean doing some of the background vocals and certainly the bass. There are no credits in the book or on the CD itself. I wonder if that was deliberate.

Buy this book. If you want your kids to know about modern art, read it to them like bedtime stories. The essays are wonderful. The photos and other reproductions of Ono's prodigious works of commercial and fine art showcase her innate sensitivity with typography as demonstrated in Grapefruit and even before that. We have treasured stills from her films, with and without her husband. And thrillingly, CLEANING PIECE, first installed in the Jerusalem Museum this year, is beautifully photographed. Yoko has arrived back at herself, and YES is the best autobiography we could have wished for. Brava Yoko Ono!

If you like Yoko Ono as an artist, poet, musician or as an individual you will find this book priceless. This book covers all the avenues in which Ono created and expressed herself. "Yes Yoko Ono" accomplishes in book form what "OnoBox" achieved on disc (an extensive collection of an extraordinary woman and artist.) The reviews, letters and material covered all provide the reader with an insightful and intelligent look at not only Yoko Ono but, also, into the darkly luminous catacombs of the creative force behind this woman. This book is multi-layered with information and photographs that will need to be read and read again and again. This will be a well in which I draw from for years to come. A book I will keep near my bed for late night readings. As Yoko grows older she reminds me more and more of Georgia O'Keeffe, another extraordinary woman and artist. I truly believe that the history books will one day recognize Ono as being as significant as the Beatles and Dylan were to our culture, except that Ono was a more diversified and cutting edge artist and thinker than her contemporaries.

In the early 1960s, Yoko Ono established herself as a challenging and often puzzling artist. She worked across the boundaries of media, making impossible to categorize her work in any field. A pioneer in conceptual art, video, and installation, Ono also crossed the boundaries into design with projects that took the form of advertising and designed artifacts. Alexandra Munroe and Jon Hendricks have surveyed the forty years of Ono's career in a richly illustrated book with essays and contributions by many scholars, including Kevin Concannon, Joan Rothfuss, and Kristine Stiles. The superb documentation includes an anthology of Ono's own writings compiled by Jon Hendricks, together with an excellent chronology and bibliography. Ken Friedman. "Alexandra Munroe with Jon Hendricks: Yes Yoko Ono." Book review published in Design Research News, Volume 6, Number 5, May 2001 ISSN 1473-3862.

This is the definitive book on Yoko Ono's art. I originally bought this when it was first released, and paid the retail value of $60.00 for it, and am very happy to see the discounted rate here at amazon.com!
This book goes through the years that Yoko Ono has been an artist. It was once said, "Yoko is the most famous unfamous artist in the world. Everyone knows who she is, but nobody knows what she does." That does not hold true any longer for people who have read, and will read this book.
The photos in this book are great, and Yoko Ono as an artist is brilliantly portrayed in this informational book!
The price is incredible, and I'm almost thinking of buying a second copy-for safekeeping!

The price of fame can be extremely high; Yoko Ono came to prominence because of her relationship to super-celebrity John Lennon. Without this association to Lennon, she'd probably be relegated to the rarified world of conceptual art and never be a household name. But the fame came at a high price; she was villified for her influence on the pop-cult Beatles and blamed for their demise. This is unfair; the Beatles would have evolved and changed without any help from Yoko Ono or Linda Eastman McCartney. And then she suffered the cruelest blow of all, to have her husband murdered by a crazed fan.

I became a fan of her art in the 60's when I read about some of her "performance" art; one favorite; she dressed herself in her best dress,gave scissors to members of an audience, sat down in a chair and encouraged them to take snips out of her dress. At first, people were shy to do so, then as one or another became bolder and snipped bits from the dress, the group became practically frenzied and she felt even worried they would go farther than just snipping a dress with the shears. A wonderful elucidation of human behavior and original; it gave new insight into ourselves and thus was truly a work of art. Other works that impressed me were photos of the bottoms of bare feet, from under a glass surface, and of course the film of buttocks, which I personally never did have a chance to see, but loved the idea of.

This book is a tremendous resource of information into Yoko Ono's varied art including her music. (No reason why a CD can't be part of a book, great idea.) This book is a fine retrospective, and I only regret that Yoko Ono will never fully take her place in modern art because of the diluting influence of pop culture on her history, and because conceptual art still has not been given the same validity as other media. (Christo perhaps is the only one to have transcended this barrier, because he sells prints of his monumentally engineered and staged concepts.)

I was at the SFMOMA to see her YES exhibition, and exactly what I expected, I was overwhelmed with delight... Her art is whimsically amazing. Her music touches your heart and soul. Seeing all the people there that day, I was glad that Yoko is finally getting all the respect she deserves, after all these years... Also caught her live performance at the Los Angeles's Roxy almost 6 years ago just took my breath away. I truly think she's one of the true visionaries of our time.

this book is filled with the wide variety of work that yoko ono has amassed over a lifetime - really great book for a yoko fan!

I disdain Miss Ono's body of work. Had it not been for John Lennon, she would probably be another burnt-out artist whose mind didn't quite survive the 60's. Let us ask ourselves by what merit ths woman qualifies as an artist either visually or vocally.

Her art is at best simplistic, at worst attempting a movement that had passed by the time she was a few years old. When Duchamp did it, it was innovative. When Miss Ono did it years later, it a lame, drug-laced imitation of early 20th-century masters.

If we must endure widows of rock stars and their art, I sincerely hope the world ends before Courtney Love discovers the Dadaists.