 I'm Arnold Lehmann, Director of the Museum, and it's a great, great pleasure and honor to welcome all of you today to the 10th anniversary of our annual Women in the Arts Celebration. And needless to say, today we are thrilled to honor Yoko Ono and her extraordinary career. It's actually hard to believe that this celebration is a decade old. I'm extraordinarily proud of the Brooklyn Museum's accomplishments during this past decade. And today's program marks a critical progression. Begun through the museum's long history with its community committee, particularly through the singular determination of our great friends, Norma Marshall and Belle Tannenhaus, and continuing through the combined activity and incredible energy of the Council for Feminist Art and our own Development and Special Events team, and I thank them all. As many of you know, the Women in the Arts Celebration is inspired by the work of the museum's groundbreaking Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. Absolutely. And it's that center that is committed to presenting such a diverse, energetic and insightful program of exhibitions, educational programming, and community engagement that makes it such a core part of this institution. Establishing the center of the Brooklyn Museum would never have been possible without the leadership of our great friend and trustee, Dr. Elizabeth A. Sackler. Elizabeth's deep commitment, which I doubt I have to tell any of you about, to feminist art and her philanthropic vision brought the center to life. And we are all the beneficiaries of that exceptional commitment. Thank you, Elizabeth. However, before I introduce Elizabeth, this is very mundane, but I've got to do it. Would you all be kind enough to please silence all of your various electronic devices? I know none of you, none of us, want to miss a word of this extraordinary program and the beeping of someone's telephone can not be the best part of that. So I thank you very much. I'm hearing some beeps right now. As you turn them off, and I'm very grateful. It is now my very great pleasure to introduce to you someone who needs no introduction, certainly at an event like this. Center's founder, Elizabeth A. Sackler. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you, Arnold. Sometimes I feel when I follow Arnold that not only is he woman's best friend, but who needs a husband or a lover or boyfriend if you have Arnold in your life. It's wonderful to have all of you here as well as to have Arnold here. For all of us here at the center and for all of you, this is a wonderful day to share. It's a wonderful moment to be together and it's certain to be extraordinary. And as our wonderful friend, Gloria Steinem, would say, isn't this fan fucking tastic? Yay, Gloria. And I thank her for everything that she has done for the center. And lest we forget, I'm very glad that Arnold mentioned the community committee because it was the community committee in 2002 that was inspired by the eventual opening in 2007 of the Sackler Center for Feminist Art to begin this luncheon. And Norma Jean Marshall, who is the late Norma Jean Marshall, and Mel Tannenhaus, who I think volunteered here for almost 40 years. And for any of you who had seen her, she was in her 90s and rather petite and one of the most vivacious personalities around. And she came to all of the center events and I will miss her. And she's probably here. So that's lovely. The Council for Feminist Art is now at the helm. And our benefit coach here is a Mary Sabatino Mary. Please stand up. Wendy Oslaw. And our Council Chair, Regina Tully. Thank you very, very much. And the Council for Feminist Art Luncheon subcommittee includes Victoria Linford, who I know is here, and Nellie Knicks, who I think couldn't be here. Lauren Walker, who I know is here. Lola West, who I think is here even though I haven't seen her. Shout if you're here. And the Sackler Center staff. And a special shout out from me to Jess, who really produced this. And I thank her very, very much. I'd like to give a very hearty and heartfelt thank you also to wonderful benefactors who have supported this event, to the matrons, not patrons. I continue to try and take back the night with that word. But I have yet to convince people. But anyway, all of our matrons, thank you very much. Hosts, advocates. I mean, this is what, in glorious words, this is what a matron looks like. I'm not a philanthropic anything. I am a matron of the arts. And so are you, because this center couldn't be what it is without you, without your participation, and also without your presence. And I think your presence really speaks to the importance and the beauty that the center has brought to art, to the art world, and the important things that people are learning from it and the programming that we do. And this morning, we will have the pleasure to hear and participate in a dialogue that is very, very special for all of us with our splendid honoree, multimedia artist, Yoko Ono, and Catherine Morris, who is the wonderful curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Art. And I'd like to tell you a little bit, because that's all I have time for, about Yoko Ono. Yoko Ono's work challenges people's understanding of art and the world around them, encompassing performance, painting, film, music, and writing. Her influence can be seen throughout the world, whether you were walking in Piccadilly Circus in 2002 and happened to see a billboard that read, imagine all the people living life in peace. Or earlier, thank you, or earlier this year you might have put a wish on Yoko Ono's wish tree for Ireland at the Dublin Biennial, and in fact you will have an opportunity if you haven't already to put a wish on Yoko's wish tree here, but there will be more about that later. Or you might have seen the artwork of both Israeli and Palestinian artists supported by the Biennial-Lenin Ono Prize bestowed by Yoko Ono. There are countless, countless, truly countless other examples of the ways we can and have witnessed the living effects of this visionary woman and visionary artist. Yoko Ono continues to make her presence known in the world as an influence for contemporary conceptual art, relevant today as it was in the 60s, and as an inspiration for peace and peaceful activism, and as an artistic visionary with uncompromising values. Please join me in welcoming... Oh, I can't do that. I forgot. I'm sorry. She's in conversation with Catherine Morris. I do have to tell you about Catherine. She's curator of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, as I mentioned, has organized exhibitions exploring issues related to feminism and its impact socially, politically, and intellectually on the development of visual culture, and I also think on the development of our social culture and our political culture, including the recent Rachel Nebone regarding Rodin and newspaper fiction The New York Journalism beyond Barnes, 1913 to 1919. Her latest exhibition entitled Materializing Six Years Lucy R. LaParde and the Emergence of Conceptual Art, Co-Curated by Vincent Bonin, can be seen right now, currently in the Sackler Center, and it also includes Yoko Ono's important work, Map Peace. So following their discussion here, there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions of Yoko and Catherine, and now I would like you to help me please welcome the wonderful Yoko Ono and Catherine Morris. Thank you. It's so nice to be here. Thank you. Thank you, Arnold, and thank you, Elizabeth, very much for that lovely introduction, and thank you, Ms. Ono, for being here today. It's a true honor for us to have you. I want to start with just a few words, and then we will have a conversation, sort of looking at images of Ms. Ono's career from the beginning, and there are so many important works that it's incredibly difficult to choose just a few, and I probably have too many, so we may skip some. And we will focus primarily on visual arts today because we had to choose something. It's your work. Since the late 1950s, Yoko Ono has produced subtle, poignant, sometimes cryptic, and yet disarmamently direct works of art across a wide range of media. In the United States, she was an early member of a downtown avant-garde scene that encompassed experimental music, fluxes, poetry, performance, and conceptual art before it was even called conceptual art with a capital C. To prove that point, we are thrilled to have her work included in the exhibition, materializing six years on view now upstairs. It is entirely fitting that her piece, Map piece, is one of the earliest works in the show, dating from 1962. That work was included in the important MoMA exhibition, Information, in 1970. As the prescient conceptual and political artist, Louis Kamnitzer pointed out during a panel discussion on this very stage several weeks ago, Yoko Ono has perennially found herself in the position of being before her time. As a result, her groundbreaking work often appeared before there was a framework or even a context in which to understand or to incorporate it. For this reason, for a long, long time, it was extremely difficult for historians and scholars to write her into standard histories. The sad state of affairs has changed significantly in the past decade. Some of the important contributors to making that change are here in this audience today, which is really nice. But for me, her enigmatic persistence is one of the most remarkable aspects of her work. It allows so much room for the rest of us to join her, that at first it can make us actually uncomfortable. So in an attempt to trace that course a bit for us today, I'd like to start with one of the most recent work, with a more recent work that touches poignantly on Ms. Ono's personal history. So I will read the piece for us. The first piece of my piece one. Toward the end of the Second World War, I looked like a little ghost because of the food shortage. I was hungry. It was getting easier to just lie down and watch the sky. That's when I fell in love with the sky, I think. Since then, all my life, I have been in love with the sky. Even when everything was falling apart around me, the sky was always there for me. It was the only constant factor in my life, which kept changing with the speed at light and lightning. Again, I could never give up on life as long as the sky was there. A lovely work from 1996, but that speaks very much about your childhood and your first, I imagine, thinking about art. So I wondered if you could tell us a little bit about that. Well, I think that the fact that I fell in love with the sky really helped me because I was not always looking down. I was not only not looking down, but looking the reality. But the reality for me was the sky. And that really saved me, I think. I just want to say something, looking at you. I feel that the first time that, well, it's not the first time, but when Joan was playing Instant Karma for MTV or something, and I was there. And what I did was I put codecs on my eyes so I can't see very well. And I bowed my feet to the chair. And I started knitting. And it was symbolic of what women were in those days. In other words, I was saying, okay, you know, our feet are bound, and our eyes are closed, and we're just knitting. But very few people got that message. I said, you know, what is she doing? But anyway, that was one period. And then after that, I made some statement like women are the world. People didn't like that statement. But what I meant was, yes, you know, we are still slaves of the society. Conveniently controlled by men so that we were slaves of women. I mean men. And the battle started, and we started to keep battling to increase our position or whatever. And now it's a totally different age. And I see you. There's no women who's, well, we think about our family and what we have to do for our family and all that too. But still, each one of you are people who really worked hard to bring this position to women. And I see that in your faces that you are a very experienced human being. Well, which has an incredible, you have the incredible pride of having done something. And it's showing in your faces. And I'm being honored by you. Not the people, not the women who had to be in a position of the slave. And I feel very honored and very happy that you did it. Thank you. Thank you very much. It brings to mind one of the questions that I had with that in the order that I was going to ask them. But do you remember when you first thought about feminism as a term or when it became very useful to you and when you maybe applied it to yourself and to your own work? Well, you know, we all worked together in a way. And well, we didn't know that we were working together maybe, but we were. And that's happening now too, that many of us are feeling that we're the only ones who are doing it and trying to improve the world to better the society or whatever. But actually, when you really think about it, we are together. And only because we're together that we have the power to change the world. So maybe when you first came to New York in the late 1950s and the early 1960s, when you found the downtown avant-garde scene, you were certainly largely a woman alone in that scene. Well, you know, I was feeling home at home even in Tokyo, in Japan. And there was a kind of feminist streak there, of course. My mother was a real dynasty that sort of controlled everybody. Well, I don't want to use the word control because she went well, and she had to do it. And in a way, she had to do it because nobody else was doing it. But she was always surrounded by lawyers who was wishing that she would deal with things with them. That kind of thing. And so there was a very strong matriarchy in Japan. It started in Heian period when women were the ones. And the men would accommodate and come into the house. And if they can't have children, then the men have to get kicked out. And it was goes called Ashire. And even now, there's a certain tradition in the provinces that shows that that was going on a long time ago. So, you know, I was used to thinking of women as being a human being, a whole human being. And when I came to New York, I was more interested in expressing myself rather than learning. And you reacted against a bit the familial upbringing that you had experienced in Japan when you got to New York. It was a very interesting period. But when I say that, I think that most of the period in my life has been interesting. Interesting is the word I'm using as a Chinese person who would use. You know, your life is very interesting. I just have this picture up here of the Chamber Street loft and some of the early work that you did in Chamber Street back in the days when Chamber Street was very much off the beaten path. These three people were trying to have, well, we did actually, but a concert of modern Japanese music. And they were also avant-garde. Well, avant-garde is not the word, but well, they were the now music people in Japan. Toshi Janaki was my partner. And Toshiro Mizumi was one of the most famous Japanese composers at the time. And he was visiting New York. So we decided, well, why not do this? And it was a very interesting concert actually. But may I say this? We did the concert. And before the concert, we had this promo photo of me, Mizumi, and Toshiro, I mean each other. And when the concert was over, and that photo was used to show that there was a concert of Japanese music, they just cut me out. So the photo was not three of us, but just two of them. Well, that's the kind of thing that was normal. Well, I don't know if it was normal or not, but it was done in New York in those days. Yeah. And at the same time that you were involved with this performative aspect of emerging avant-garde music, you were also thinking of yourself as a painter. And you were also thinking of yourself as a painter. You were making paintings, for instance, paintings to be stepped on. This is my painting. But even in that photo when I'm sitting on the piano, you see that this canvas, the painting behind us. It's a very interesting thing. The Chamber Street loft was, there was a period of about six months between 1960 and 61, where you did a very specific series of concerts, which are still very important. Well, I think I was, I don't know what it was, but pride was there. I don't know if that kind of pride is really good or not, but it just was part of me. So that when people don't understand my work, I just didn't feel like explaining. So now I'm going to ask you to explain. Painting to be stepped on. Would you like to explain it? A little bit. But I like to explain it, yes. So the idea of painting as an object, but painting connected to language, and painting connected to an idea that allows the viewer to understand painting differently. Well, you see, I never believed in paintings that are like wallpaper. You know, pretty, you know, but this is not saying anything. I think it's a waste of time not to say anything. So each painting that I did had a lot to do with my experience of life. And this was one. And it turns out to be one of the earliest painting of this kind, and it was sort of like important for me. And it happens in the 16th century that the Spanish and Portuguese people came to Japan. And there was a Christianity became very, very popular, and the lords were very concerned about it. We don't want them to become Christian. So there was a portrait of Jesus Christ on the floor. And if you can step on it, you're right. If you can't step on it, you become a martyr on the cross. Well, sometimes martyrs on the cross, but sometimes we're just jailed or whatever. And people, the Christian people knew that that would happen. But still they could not step on Jesus Christ's portrait. And when I heard about that when I was a little girl, I was like, oh my God, what a beautiful thing. How courageous they were. So I wanted to be a person who was just as courageous. And so this was sort of like the signature painting for that. The painting to step on. And this was a painting that was included in a very important exhibition that you did at A.G. Gallery, which was founded by George Mccunus, who was a part of the circle of people who I think very much defined your early years in New York. George Mccunus and John Cage and David Tudor and other people. Here's an image of you. And this was in the mid-summer in New York, New York City. And it was very, very warm, too hot for anybody to come to a gallery. So I was there sort of waiting for people to come. But I think there was only about five people who came who were my friends actually. And one was Cage, John Cage. And one was David Tudor. One was Isam Noguchi, Beata Gordon and her daughter. Well, if you're going to have five people. Five people. Very, very important five people. Well, I mean, they were not important, but they became important because they came. This is an image of a performance of John Cage's work that happened in Tokyo after he went back to Tokyo after the A.G. exhibition. Oh, this, this. No, this is not Tokyo, you know. Oh. This is Hokkaido. Hokkaido is another island in Japan. But it's a very kind of advanced, advanced music there. And so I did this and... They didn't cut you out of this one. Well, I thought that I think that the body movement should be a part of music. And this is significant, too, because I think that there was a way in which your presence when you went back to Japan and invited Cage and Tudor and other people to come and do these performances was a significant impact on a lot of artists in Japan and ultimately in the United States with the exchange of ideas that happened as a result. Well, I did know they were in the United States. I did know they were in Japan. But the whole pattern of things were always the same. And it was very interesting because I performed in this particular concert not just to show the body movement, but I did some vocal things that I created which was sort of like a unique thing that I created. About a month ago, is it? Musicologist, American musicologist called me and said, you know, I think that I hear you in this particular Cage performance. So I said, well, I was there and I did it, you know. But you didn't get the credit. Well, that's true. That was happening all the time. But you see, if I were pursuing that all the time, I said, how dare you didn't give me credit or something like that? It's just a waste of time for me. I mean, I don't want to use my energy or negative things like that because I'm always thinking about the next thing I'm going to make. And it's so exciting. Life is so exciting without being so negative about things. So I'm just sort of, you know, going through it without being concerned about it. Which is not to say that I was not concerned. But I was less concerned about that than my next piece of music that I'll be making. And you also seem to have a very strong desire to work collaboratively and to work closely with a number of obviously many people over the course of your career. So when one enters into a collaborative process, that those boundaries often get blurred, as in this case. But you know the thing is, of course, that some people may have understood it. But if I really think about it, most people didn't understand it. So am I going to be crazy about it? Am I going to be upset about it? I'm only saying this to you because it's not to sort of show what I was or anything. But I think it might help you in some ways when you go through a negative situation. Just don't think about it. Or make that negative situation into a positive one. You can do that. And one of the positive ways that I believe that you did that was then to compile grapefruit. In the period after all of this collaborative work in New York and then in Japan, to sort of pull together your work and your texts. And grapefruit remains one of the most important books I think of the last 50 years. And it is for sale in the bookstore. Thank you. Though not this edition, I'm sorry to say. Grapefruit. And also I feel like the ono disc, the ricobox piece that you did in 1992 sort of does for your music what grapefruit did for your word and your text and your visual arts pieces. They both sort of encompass so much of what you were working on. There are many divisions in grapefruit. I have sculptural work, I have painting work, I have music work. I have just pure conceptual work poetry. What else is there? Dance. And I just felt that it was important that we don't ask ourselves to be just one thing. Just be whatever you want to be when you're thinking about painting. But then, oh, I'm not a painter so I shouldn't do it. Or you think about the music. Well, I'm a painter so I shouldn't be doing the music. Now, this way of doing things, it was not very popular. Popular is the word maybe. Because most people said, no, I'm not going to take her painting seriously because she's a musician. And then when I'm doing music, they said, no, she's not a musician. So we shouldn't even listen to this. She's a painter. And it just went like that. But now I don't think that people are like that. No. Could you tell us what the word grapefruit means for you? Oh, grapefruit? Well, because I think vaguely I thought that way. But it doesn't mean that I was really thinking. Now here there's a mixture of two cultures, western and eastern. Like grapefruit, which is a mixture of lemon and orange. But that's what it was really. We always have to talk about cut piece. Yes, yes. This is the first one of the earliest incarnation at Carnegie Hall. What? Carnegie Hall. Yes, Carnegie Recital Hall. That's a slightly different, the smaller place. But in those days, you'll never think that. But people like John Cage could not have a concert in Carnegie Hall. He had it in Carnegie Recital Hall. All of us avant-garde artists was able to do a show in Carnegie Recital Hall and not Carnegie Hall. It's a very different kind of situation. So cut piece involved Nisono coming onto the stage and kneeling with a pair of scissors and inviting the audience to approach. Well, not now. No, not now. And to cut a piece of your clothing. Yes. And for those of us who have observed this piece as we are observing it now, I think it's sort of engenders a lot of thoughts about the audience. What the audience thought or why they did what they did or how that acted, or how they reacted to this invitation. You see how I am? In other words, I was not really looking at what was going on. I was sort of meditating in a way. So I was in meditation. And so it wasn't that scary, but it was a little bit scarier. Seems very scary to me. This was about three years ago in Paris. And in the beginning, was it 1963? No, it's not 1963 maybe. And I first did it in Kyoto and then in New York. And at the time, then I immediately did it in London too. So it was like boom, boom, boom like that. But then I just thought, well, I did it. So why not, you know, I made a statement so let's not keep repeating it. And about three years ago, I did it in Paris again. This was like after long, long hiatus or whatever. Oh, cut piece. And the reason is because I started to see that there's an incredible mistrust of people and getting very violent the whole world. And I just wanted to show that we should trust each other. But it was really frightening. So a friend called me and said, I can get you some bodyguard who would be there. He said, well, that's not the idea. Well, I can get you a bodyguard that doesn't look like a bodyguard. So the thing is my son was rather concerned too, which was rather sweet because he doesn't really like to come to my concerts or anything. He's not interested in my stuff usually in those days. Well, now we're partners, but so I was surprised that he came to Paris and was in the whole sort of standing, you know, to protect me or something. Well, I mean, if something happened, he couldn't protect me. But I mean, just the idea I thought was very nice. And I did this feeling that I should not have any protection and anybody could get into the concert hall. So I thought that's something, that's the vibration of that idea could maybe affect the world. And I'm not saying because it's my vibration, anybody's vibration. We can just start to trust each other. But I'm afraid it didn't work so well. No? No, I mean, that's sense. I think that, you know, there's a lot of violence still in the world. I have to include the white chest set because it's actually... Great, great trust, yeah. It's one of the first pieces that I remember seeing and experiencing and loving. And it's also very poignant because I'm wondering when politics in a very specific kind of current way entered into your work as opposed to a more metaphysical way. And I think that the white chest set piece does both of those things. It touches on the sort of history of the idea of violence and war and conflict. But it also at the time that this was made very specifically touched upon what was going on in the world. And I wonder if you have always felt that sort of dynamic in the work. You see, I go through some turmoil about the way I am. I read things like, you know, I'm sick and tired of people being positive. Why don't we have a book that just gives all the negative aspects of the world or something? Okay, you know. And I understand that feeling too. Sometimes I'm very depressed too, you know, as being human being. But I think that just on... Even if it's just to balance it, it's important that we have some positive ideas about the world. It's important that we would look to the future in terms of hoping for the best. And I don't think that we have the luxury to be hip and negative at this point. It might have been fun in the 60s. But now we are all very concerned and we have a clear understanding of where we stand and what we can do and maybe what we can do. So, you know, it's a different age, I think. Just again to touch a little bit on the sculptural objects that you made in this period in the 60s. Keys to Open the Sky. And a lovely work that again touches upon so many conceptual ideas and so many personal feelings of possibility and openness. But also touches upon ideas about minimal sculpture and other sort of art world ideas that were floating at the time. And I think in that way it... Well, you see, the meaning of this is twofold. One is the fact that it's a key, key to open. But also it's a key that would break if you try to open it because it's glass, you know. Well, you can think about that. So now we talk about direct political action. I don't mind. The piece is often called Bedpiece, Bedin. Bedpiece as in P-E-A-C-A, P-I-E-C. How do you think of it? Well, you know, for me it's very nostalgic. Looking at Joan, looking so serious. And I'm kind of serious too. And there were moments because, you know, it was a... What is it? About 14 hours a day situation where everybody was there looking at us, you know, and we made sure that that's fine. And... But so it was very trying in some ways. Also there were times when we were just smiling or laughing or kissing or hugging or whatever. This was your honeymoon, I should say, for people who aren't aware of that, that the performance was performed as... This was a performance going on for seven days. In two cities? Right after your marriage. Where? Just as a honeymoon after you were married. Anyway, so we were hoping and we were so naive. I can't believe that we were so naive. Each time when we do something like this, we said, Good, we're going to have peace right now, you know. What, the next year? It didn't happen that way. And now, I say we know, but maybe Joan knows too, that we have to be a bit more patient. And it is working, but it's very, very... It depends on how we are. It's a very slow process in a way. But it is working. When you look around, and if you see something that you love, beauty is what you love. And we are surrounded with beauty. And we will keep those beauty going on for a few centuries maybe. So let's do that. Thank you. So we go from the bed to the billboard. This boy is over. Exactly. How did you come up with the idea of installing work on a billboard? Well, I did say that in those days, so I think it's all right to repeat it. But I thought, why don't we have a big party with very many famous people in Ascot, in our house. And while the party is going on, somebody just comes in the room and says, voice over. And all of us say, voice over is great. But of course, you know, we didn't do that, of course. And then we said, maybe because I was doing things like standing in Trafalgar Square in a black bag and saying, I'm doing this to bring a world peace or something like that. And I thought that's John. And so John said, why don't we just have a picnic on Trafalgar Square. You know, big, beautiful basket. And a chauffeur would take it to Trafalgar Square. A beautiful blanket or something that we sit on, et cetera. Well, that we didn't do either. So eventually we decided to do voice over as a poster. And then John came up with, well, not just a poster, we can do billboards. And so we had billboards all over the world, so to speak, not all of the world. Was it about seven cities, maybe? They've had a remarkable resilience and have shown up in many, many cities, jumping around a little bit. And I'm worried about time, so I'm wondering if we should, I wanted to just touch upon a little bit about your video and film work. This is one of my favorite images. Well, I'm sure that we don't have to explain this. This is a piece, this is the production shot of a film called Bottoms. Well, there's a continuation of this story that you're going to hear, maybe in about two weeks. I want to show a short video that you did that is very feminist. Was this for whatever it was? Oh, I know what this is. Just quickly could I explain it? I rethink what John did with music. It was fantastic. It was really very avant-garde and strong and powerful, you know, and kind of minimal kind of thing. And he just did it. And I was trying to really break out. But you see that little sort of rubber string that was there? For the life of me, I could not cut it. So that's like a symbolic thing, isn't it? So you actually started off wanting to thinking you would break it. And it's just that thing would start there. I'm going to skip on to the next image, because I love the idea that one of the lovely things that you do in your work is consistently refer back and the way that in this case the bottom image that we saw a couple of slides earlier then reappears years later as a billboard. And I wondered if you could tell us about this piece. The things that I did before becomes the material for the next step. And I don't have any problem with that. And how was the reception of all these bottoms all over the city? Did people like seeing the bottoms on the billboards? And bus stations? And also I do this thing about audience participation. So when I have something like that, some magazine will say, please can we use one page with this? And I say, well, that's fine, but make sure that people write over it and then send it to you so that there are many different kinds. And what we did was in one city, somebody went to all the toilets in the bath. You know how toilets, they scribble something. So they're supposed to scribble something on this and then we filmed it. So it's all very different. It was very interesting. That's my son. And a performance that you did at the knitting factory in several years ago. Now I have to get my notes out again. I've been sort of ringing it to now. Excuse me. And it touches upon again your music and your performance work, even though we haven't talked about that very much today. But it also starts to lead into your collaborations with your son, which become very much more important when we talk about your next project, which has to do with anti-fracking. And I just wanted to show this, I think, amazing image of the two of you performing together. What is the next phase, you know? Next phase of the next phase kind of thing. And I'm very... Well, I didn't know that I was bearing a child that would become my musician so conveniently. But we're sort of working together. And it's good. So another billboard. This is a more recent one. Oh, this is the anti-fracking. Which is something that you've been very engaged in in the most recently. May I talk about this a little? Because it's so important for all of us that we don't do fracking. Fracking is very bad and that's sort of lying. Lying in so many ways. Oh, it's going to be safe. It's very good and whatever. I trust that because to do fracking you have to use enormous amount of water and then put maybe 20 or 30 chemicals in that too. So that water is very dirty, principle. And we don't have enough water. I mean, the farmers are complaining in one of the countries saying, they're taking our water, you know? And so it's very important to keep pure water. Now, New York happens to be one of the very few places that the water is pure so far. But if they start to do the fracking we're going to die. And you know that it's very interesting that these people say, well, this is a very good way to be independent and make money. Okay, I mean, they did once to start asking people to carry guns. Guns? Yes, guns make money too. But it kills as well. And this is going to kill us. It's going to take our health away. So please, please make sure to write to Governor Cuomo all the time. I mean, if you have, you know, any time that you can spare from writing a letter to your lover or something. Just write to him, so to say. We still don't want this, you know? Because now people, when people don't write about three days, you know, they say, oh, it seems like the people forgot about this and they don't care about it. No, we do care. But we don't write enough probably. So please write to him saying, don't fright me. Okay? These are some images that you sent to us. This is Pennsylvania. I don't know how they managed, but they told the Pennsylvania people, it's going to be great. You're going to make a lot of money. Or we're going to make a lot of money. And beautiful, beautiful green mountains and green fields are now like this. Like this. And the water, when you light with a match, it becomes fire. And that's the dirty water. The water is going to be dirty. It's all going to be dirty water. And we don't want that. We can't afford to have dirty water. Thank you. Now we're going to end up, and then we'll have a few questions before we have lunch. But I want to end by talking about one of your most beloved pieces, wish tree, which we are thrilled to have an example of in our lobby. So we hope that as you leave here and go to our luncheon that you might add a wish to the wish tree. And I will put my wish too. Each time I see the wish tree I do. So wish tree is a work that has had many incarnations and many lives and many cities and countries all over the world? It's going to be very good. Well already, all over the world, they're all writing to me. Could we have the wish tree? Of course, you know. And I think it's about over a million now. You know, they all sent it to me. But a million is not a very big number actually for this kind of thing. But I think it is, because the quality that comes. You know? One wish that you make might change the world. So let's just keep changing it into a great world. Thank you. So we hope we invite you to add your wish to the Brooklyn Museum Wish Tree. So thank you very much. So we have a few minutes for a couple of questions. Yes. There is, by the way, a microphone, I'm sorry, over on my right, your left. If you'd like to ask a question, we'd love to answer a couple. Hi, Yoko. I hope you come. What? You have to come in. Oh, I'm sorry. I'll come in. It's very difficult to... For you to see. Yeah. Here when it's available it's going. Hi. Hi. And I want to ask you to comment on one aspect of your work, the collaborative aspect, inviting people to add to your work. Over the years you've been very open-minded and open-hearted about letting people add to your work and, as you say, finish it. Yes, adding. Finish it. Well, you see, the thing is, there was a tradition in art world that all artists would like their work to be not touched. Exactly the way they did it. And hopefully it would go on for eternity. And I was one of those artists. So I thought, I don't want people to touch my work, you know. But then I thought, well, that's why it's bad. I mean, that's... All of us are thinking that. So I said, okay, I'm going to make a work that people can not only touch, but add to it. Change it. Whatever they want to do with it. Because the other side of the idea, the idea, the reality is the fact that even if we try not to have that done, it's going to have it done anyway. I mean, even the pyramid, it's a little bit crooked now or whatever it is. I mean, people are going to do it. So why don't I make it part of my instructions and part of my work? And it's working. Yes? So, Miss Ono, it's a real pleasure and privilege to be here with you today. And my question is based on a statement that you made about that it's a waste of time not to say anything with your art. And I wonder, given in this day and age, is it really possible for artists with purely creative acts to really make a difference politically or socially today? Do you think that it's... I've been a paraphrase. I hope I get this correct. Do you think it's really possible for artists to make a social and political difference with purely creative acts? With purely creative acts. Do you think it's possible to make a real difference? Well, I really think so. You know, I really think that even one person can change the world. And that happened many times, really. But, you know, we're so credit-conscious and we don't want to give credit to anybody. And we get so jealous about somebody who did it. So we don't talk about it so much. But I think that those things did happen in history. And we can do it. But, excuse me, it doesn't have to be just art. But, you know, all of us, as I always say, we're artists, you know. And so that if you start to bring out that artist in you, and you can do it. Being an artist is such a privilege because, and we are all artists, politicians have so much red tape, they can't do what they want to do. Many people who are hired by a company or something can't do what they want to do. Many people who own the company, even that, they can't do what they want to do. But artists are still very free and they can bypass all that and do what they want to do. And the fact that you can do what you want to do is an incredible thing. And that particular power is what we are surviving on. Thank you very much. Thank you, thank you. Dr. Sackler is going to say a few more words. Thank you, thank you. I love you very much because beauty is what you love. And I love you. I would like to end for all of you that not only can artists do what they want to do, but that we're all artists and we can all do what we want to do. For this opportunity today, I particularly want to thank the museum's chairman, Jack, and our president, Stephanie, and the board of trustees for trusting. For trusting me, for trusting the center, and for bringing Yoko Ono to us today. Yoko's constancy in asking us to imagine peace, inviting us to snip away our unrecognized and recognized aggressions, all with the mantra, power to the people, does as great art is want to do, change lives forever. Thank you for having changed our lives and with your acceptance of this award on this day, the museum is now forever imbued, Yoko, with your vision and the invitation to call an equitable, honorable world. And this demands us to hold your truths on high, and I thank you personally for it. Thank you so much. This is from the Women in the Arts Award presented by the council for feminist art and the trustees of the Brooklyn Museum.