Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind

Every Thursday from 5–8 pm, enjoy free admission to Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind. Get tickets →

Since the mid-1950s, Ono has written short "instruction" pieces prompting viewers to realize the artwork or imagine it in one’s mind. Typescript drafts for her 1964 book Grapefruit reveal instructions like "Listen to the sound of the Earth turning" and "Draw a map to get lost." Some instructions throughout the exhibition invite participation, including Painting to Hammer a Nail (1961/1966), where visitors hammer nails into the surface of the painting.

In Helmets (Pieces of Sky) (2001), upturned World War II-era German soldier helmets are transformed into vessels holding fragments of the sky. Visitors take away a single puzzle piece, becoming participants in an unfinished work that asks us to imagine rebuilding the world together.

Outside on East West Bank Plaza, The Broad's olive trees transform into Wish Tree for Los Angeles (1996). Write a wish for peace and tie it to a branch, joining thousands of other wishes gathered throughout the run of the exhibition.

In My Mommy Is Beautiful (2004), write a note about your mother or pin her photo to the canvas. The work accumulates personal stories within the gallery and evolves into a collective reflection on relationships with mothers, shaped entirely by visitors.

Add Colour (Refugee Boat) (1960/2016) invites visitors to reflect on the ongoing refugee crisis and leave their individual mark throughout the gallery, gradually transforming the once white space into a sea of blue messages.

Ono's activism with John Lennon is highlighted through rarely-seen material from Acorn Event (1968) and documentation of their famous Bed-In for Peace, Bed Peace (1969). In 1968, the couple planted acorns as a living sculpture for peace at the ruins of Coventry Cathedral in England. The next year, they mailed acorns to ninety-six world leaders asking them to plant their own acorns for peace. Following their wedding in 1969, they turned their honeymoon into "bed-ins" (a play on sit-in protests common during the era), using their celebrity to stage a media campaign against the Vietnam War.

Films and performance documentation feature throughout the show including documentation of Cut Piece (1964), Ono's landmark performance which invited audience members to cut pieces of her clothing while she sat silently onstage. Also on view are FILM NO. 1 ("MATCH") (1966), which stretches the striking of a match into slow motion; the once-banned FILM NO. 4 ('BOTTOMS') (1967), which realizes the score, “String bottoms together in place of signatures for petition of peace”; and FLY (1970-71) and Freedom (1970), two films that challenge conventional representations of the female body, agency, and sexuality.

Yoko Ono (b. 1933, Tokyo) is an artist, musician, and activist whose work has shaped the course of contemporary art, music, and performance for more than seventy years, continually pushing the boundaries between artist and audience.

Raised in Japan, with periods in the US, Ono was the first female philosophy student at Gakushuin University, Tokyo before moving to New York in 1953 to attend Sarah Lawrence College. She moved to Manhattan in 1956, immersed in a community of artists and composers and developing her own art practice, often in the form of instructions that invited participation.

In 1960, she organized performances with composer La Monte Young at a loft she rented on Chambers Street, which became a vital part of an emerging New York art and music scene. Her first solo exhibition followed in 1961 at AG Gallery.

In March 1962, Ono returned to Tokyo, presenting new performances and exhibiting her Instructions for Paintings, text-based works that replaced the physical artwork with the idea itself, marking a decisive moment in the emergence of conceptual art. In 1964, Ono performed Cut Piece and self-published Grapefruit, her seminal book of instructions.

Ono moved to London in 1966 where she lived until 1971. Within the first year, she had two solo exhibitions, produced her feature length film FILM NO. 4 (“BOTTOMS”), 1966–67, and staged numerous performances.

At her Indica Gallery exhibition, she presented new conceptual object-based works. Here she met John Lennon, beginning a personal and artistic relationship in art, music, and activism. Together they staged peace initiatives including the Bed-In for Peace and the WAR IS OVER! If You Want It campaign. These actions extended Ono’s conceptual practice into a framework for political and social imagination, transforming art into a platform for global activism. In the late 1960s and early 1970s Ono and Lennon focused on music, film, and activism. Over the span of five years, Ono released four solo albums and four collaborative albums with Lennon, while also making multiple films, including FLY, Freedom, “RAPE”, Apotheosis, and Imagine. Withdrawing from public life after the birth of their son, the couple returned to the studio in 1980. Double Fantasy was released that November, winning the 1981 Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

After Lennon’s assassination in December 1980, Ono continued making music and exhibiting internationally. In 2000, the retrospective, Yes Yoko Ono, originating at the Japan Society Gallery, New York, toured to thirteen international venues over four years. In 2007, Ono unveiled the IMAGINE PEACE TOWER on Videy, Iceland, giving a permanent home to her and Lennon’s long-standing commitment to world peace. In 2009, she received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 53rd Venice Biennale.

Ono’s work has continued to be honored with exhibitions at some of the world’s most prestigious venues, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2015), Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2015), Tate Modern, London (2024), and Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2025).

Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind is organized by Tate Modern, London in collaboration with The Broad, Los Angeles. Curated by Juliet Bingham, Curator, International Art, Tate Modern. The Broad presentation is curated by Sarah Loyer, Curator and Exhibitions Manager.

Hero image credits (L-R): Yoko Ono holding Glass Hammer, 1967, in Yoko Ono at Lisson: Half-A-Wind Show, Lisson Gallery, London, 1967. © Yoko Ono. Photo by and © Clay Perry. Visitors explore Yoko Ono’s Add Colour (Refugee Boat) (1960/2016) installed in Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind, Tate Modern, London, 2024. © Yoko Ono. Photo © Oliver Cowling, courtesy of Tate.

Photos in "Add Your Voice" Section by Josh White/JWPictures.com

Artwork credits: Bed-In at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel, Netherlands, 1969 Photograph by Henry Pessar © Yoko Ono; Installation view of Wish Tree of Los Angeles, 2026, in Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind at The Broad, 2026. 2019. Photograph by Joshua White/JWPictures.com © Yoko Ono; Installation view of My Mommy is Beautiful in Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind at The Broad, 2026. 2019. Photograph by Joshua White/JWPictures.com; Installation view of Yoko Ono's Apple, 1966, in Yoko Ono: Lumière de L'Aube, MAC Lyon, Lyon, France, 2016. Photograph by Blaise Adilon © Blaise Adilon Courtesy of Yoko Ono; Cut Piece, 1964, performed in New Works of Yoko Ono, Carnegie Recital Hall, New York, filmed by David and Albert Maysles, film, 16mm, black and white, and sound (stereo), 8min, 27sec. © Yoko Ono; Yoko Ono FLY, 1970/1971 Directed by Yoko Ono & John Lennon Score and concept by Yoko Ono Soundtrack by Yoko Ono & John Lennon Film, 16mm, colour and sound (mono) 25min © Yoko Ono