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• 1 media/Yoko4.jpg media/Yoko4.jpg 2020-10-14T22:05:50+00:00 Yoko Ono, Cut Piece, 1964 12 Essay II plain 2020-12-08T00:00:37+00:00          Yoko Ono is a Japanese avant-garde artist who is known for her art deconstructing conventional and conservative norms for feminist around the world. Besides being famously known as the wife of John Lennon, she is known as being a defining figure in the contemporary art world. Her art piece Cut Piece, 1964 is one of her most famous performance art pieces in which she was unveiling gender relationships between male and female, victim and assailant, and sadist and masochist. 
            Yoko Ono was born on February 18, 1933 in Tokyo, Japan into an aristocratic family as the eldest child. Her father was a bank executive and was often transferred from his employer to different places around the world. San Francisco was the first transfer that happened right before she was born and soon after her birth, her mom and her moved to live with him. In 1937, her father was transferred back to Tokyo and she was then enrolled into an elite school formerly known as the Gakushuin School.  When Ono turned eighteen, she moved to New York with her parents as her father had been transferred again for work. There she enrolled in Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York studying music and writing, but was never able to find a true niche so never graduated. 
            Although she never graduated, she was able to forge a relationship in the avant-garde world by creating her own artistic style and meeting various, diverse artists.  She first met artist and composer John Cage who became her inspiration, mentor, and collaborator. Her loft in downtown Manhattan was also a place for a series of performance events in which experimental composer, La Monte Young, helped to organize. Ono would often debut her conceptual art pieces that required the viewer to participate but wasn’t taken seriously as she often approached her art with an underlying feminist agenda. 
            In 1964 Yoko Ono hosted an art performance in which she debuted her piece Cut Piece, 1964 at Yamaichi Concert Hall in Kyoto, Japan. During this performance, Ono is the subject of the piece as she sat motionless on her knees fully clothed in all black on a stage with scissors by her side as she allowed viewers to participate in the performance. Viewers were instructed to cut up small pieces of her clothing and take the piece they cut with them home. Ono used this technique to represent victimization of women, the cruelty of their abusers, and how genders hold particular roles.
              This particular art piece performance can be seen from a feminist art methodology approach. As Ono sits quietly and still on the stage while viewers rip pieces of her clothing off, it can be interpreted as an oppressor and the oppressed during a situation involving rape. As she wears all black, we get the idea that she is mourning a particular situation as she sits there motionless, emotionless, and is unwillingly being undressed as a situation involving rape would take similar action. The clothes being cut and taken away is the idea that someone is ripping them off her. Her sitting motionless can be seen as the oppressed used to an un-wanting situation but has no control over it or can’t stop it, feeling powerless and being left with nothing.
            The art piece can also be seen as how society views gender roles in which women are required to be fully clothed, especially during this time when women were fighting for equality. As the layers of her clothes are being ripped apart, her bra is one of the last articles of clothing left to be cut. The bra can be seen as the shackles of society and conventional norms that women were trying to break free from. This particular time frowned upon any cleavage or inappropriate clothing that revealed the breasts, required women to marry and uphold a household with children, have no legal rights to their husbands’ earnings or property, and were treated unfairly in the workplace as far as positions and earnings. The bra can be seen as a piece of confinement and the scissors are a symbol of freedom and liberation. 
               In this very way the sadist and machoistic idea is spawned upon as a woman is the main subject of the piece. Ono performed this piece several times and in 1964 this piece was titled “Stripping” in a headline and in 1968 was presented in a gentlemen’s magazine, TAB, with a headline that read, “The Hippiest Artistic Happening: ‘Step Up and Strip Me Nude.”   In this way machismo men can interpret this performance as a free show rather than seeing it from an intellectual standpoint. One can be excited to cut the pieces off her body because she is allowing them to do so as a part of the performance and they can be sexually aroused seeing the pieces slowly being cut and thrown off her.
            Ono established herself as a radical feminist in 1972 when she published an article called The Feminization of Society in Sundance Magazine. In this article she addresses issues that had to do with the feminist movement that was going on during this time as well as her outlook on it. She states:
           
      "I am proposing the feminization of society; the use of feminine nature as a positive force to change the world. We can change ourselves with feminine intelligence and awareness, into a basically organic, noncompetitive society that is based on love, rather than reasoning. The result will be a society of balance, peace and contentment." 
            In the article she also expresses that men have been failing to run the world peacefully through this patriarchal society that we have summoned ourselves to and that that if society reorganized itself, feminine characteristics will prevail more than masculine ones. But this can only happen if women continue to unite and accept the differences within one another such as color, race, and sexuality differences.
              Although many associate and interpret her art piece from a feminist standpoint, it also represents a deeper meaning relevant to Japanese culture and Ono’s own feelings about art. It can be interpreted from a part of her childhood in Japan as World War II was going on. Many victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were torn from their belongings, such as their clothing. The clothing Ono is wearing in the performance can be seen as a representation to the bombings, and when the participant cuts a piece off, she is stripped from strength and power, representing the victims of Japan. As this piece was debuted in Japan, the participants were mostly Japanese and rather than wearing the traditional kimono Ono is seen wearing normal western clothing as the Japanese audience cuts pieces off as a depiction of destroying western culture.
             Ono has also expressed in an article published in a London underground magazine in 1967 that Cut Piece, 1964 can be seen as a “form of giving, giving and taking. It was a kind of criticism against artists, who are always giving what they want to give. I wanted people to take whatever they wanted to, so it was very important to say you can cut wherever you want to. It is a form of giving that has a lot to do with Buddhism.” 
            Ono’s identity is central to the critical analysis of her work because without being a conscious woman that understands her oppression and the oppressor, she would not be able to put her work forth continually and successfully, as this art piece performance has been performed several times. Her viewpoints on how she felt about patriarchal society and other artistic things she was delving into at the time can be related to this artwork performance. The last piece of clothing to be ripped is a lingerie-like bra that is a feminine symbol to delineate the structures of confinements that women experience. She states that “the audience was quiet and still, and I felt that everyone was holding their breath. While I was doing it, I was staring into space. I felt kind of like I was praying. I also felt that I was willingly sacrificing myself.”
              At the end of everyone cutting off pieces, Ono is seen holding and covering her breasts in the same position she started in. This is fairly considered as it neglects male counterpoints and redirects the focus to women and women only. However, it sheds light on patriarchy and class and how these structures are used to subjugate the woman. The overall meaning of the performance gives focus on how women are treated in this patriarchal society and the idea that different types of people are cutting the clothing off is how everyone is actually involved and contributes to this type of society.
            Yoko Ono is seen as a defining figure in the contemporary art world as her art projects and performances have dealt with many controversial topics, such as Cut Piece, 1964. This particular art performance has been performed repeatedly up until Ono was seventy as it is an artistic demonstration against ableism, sexism, racism, and violence.   As a female she understands the sexism that is involved in society, and as an artist she has seen discrimination within the world of art. Through her feminist activism in her art she represents all females who are still being suppressed till this day.