Leading conceptual artist Yoko Ono at BALTIC, Gateshead, UK, Dec 13 - Mar 15

Exhibition Description:

Leading conceptual artist Yoko Ono has an international exhibition career spanning nearly 50 years. This exhibition of her works from 1961 to the present, is one of the largest exhibitions of Yoko Ono’s work to date, and is a major collaborative project with Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany, occupying two floors of BALTIC with additional works located outside the gallery.

Yoko Ono's work represents her strong and irrepressible desire for freedom. This desire can be immediately recognised in her Imagine Peace billboards displayed throughout the exhibition. Ono has also created Wish Trees that invite visitors to express their hopes and dreams by writing wishes on paper and hanging them on the branches. These wishes will be collected at the end of the exhibition, and sent to the IMAGINE PEACE TOWER in Videy Island, Iceland, to join wishes from around the world. There is another installation called SkyLadder, which could be read as an allegory for the exhibition’s title, BETWEEN THE SKY AND MY HEAD. This invites us to consider an imaginary, spiritual space centred between the sky and earth.

Inside BALTIC, the exhibition occupies more than 1400m² of gallery space containing sculpture, paintings, drawing, photography, films and sound installations, as well as participation works. There are 50 works featured in the exhibition, including Play it by Trust, a conceptual chess set, made from white Italian Carrara marble. Another version of this work was first exhibited in London at Ono’s legendary exhibition at the Indica Gallery in 1966.

In addition, the work My Mommy is Beautiful, is another participatory piece in which visitors to BALTIC are invited to bring photographs of their mothers, along with thoughts and memories about their mothers, to be permanently attached to the blank canvases. At the conclusion of the exhibition, the completed canvases will be sent to the artist in New York.

Full Contact Details:

BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
Gateshead Quays
South Shore Road, Gateshead
NE8 3BA, United Kingdom
+44 (0) 191 440 4915 direct line
+44 (0) 191 478 1922 fax