 Yoko Ono, the widow of the Beatles legend John Lennon, is in Seoul on the first stop of her retrospective exhibition tour in Asia. She made a grand entrance Friday at the Rodin Gallery for the opening of the exhibition, which runs until Sept. 14.
Ono said she had been waiting about 50 years to come to Korea, the homeland of two of her closest friends from her days at Sarah Lawrence College.
Hosted by the Samsung Culture Foundation and programmed by the Japan Society, the Yoko Ono exhibition presents 126 works, from installation art to movies, including the renowned ¡°Yes Painting,¡± which paved the way to her relationship with Lennon. While the Korean title for the exhibition is just ¡°Yoko Ono,¡± it is titled ¡°YES YOKO ONO¡± in English. When asked what the ¡°yes¡± was for, Ono says, ¡°yes to life, yes to love, and yes to peace.¡±
The organizers repeatedly warned reporters not to ask questions about her private life, but the interpreter delivered a question by a reporter who asked how she and John Lennon influenced each other. Ono was cool about getting into details of her days with Lennon, but said she is working on a musical piece that Lennon had completed producing on the day of his death.
Repeatedly stressing, ¡°imagine peace,¡± Ono looked like a peace messenger. After walking around the gallery, she said that she felt her works are better understood in Korea than in the United States or Europe, probably because there is something Asian that ¡°flows between us like blood in the veins.¡±
¡°Art is a healthy way to communicate with the world, a way to fill the world with the love that it lacks,¡± said Ono. She later recalled that when she turned 50, she realized that the first 50 years of her life had been only a prelude, and the best of her work was still to come.
(Jeong Jae-yeon, whauden@chosun.com )
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