The Non-Violence Project Foundation (NVP) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to inspire, motivate and engage young people on how to peacefully resolve conflicts. It holds violence prevention and nonviolence education programs for schools and sports clubs around the world. NVP’s signature logo is the Non-Violence, also known as the Knotted Gun. It was created by the Swedish artist, Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd (1934 – 2016) as a memorial tribute to John Lennon after he was shot and killed on December 8, 1980, in New York City. Ambassadors of the Non-Violence Project include Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and Yoko Ono, among others. This Shell Pink Knotted Gun sculpture was spotted for sale in the Non-Violence Project’s booth at the Fall 2018 Affordable Art Fair in NYC.
I feel no shame in confessing that the highlight of my day — and I do mean every single day — is the moment I slip into my bed after being swept away by too much TV and snuggle in the darkness with my pillows and comforter until I achieve full comfort, and drift off into a marvelously dream-filled sleep. Because sleeping is my jam. I once had a dream where my bed became a car, and I took to the streets for the day’s adventures with no one seeming to even notice that my vehicle was, in fact, a bed. Unlike those stress-dreams where you are either naked or sitting on a toilet in public, it was awesome.
It is surely no surprise then that the video for “Yoko Ono,” from a brand new LA-based musical duo called Moby Rich (because those are their names) sold me at around the 50 second mark, as Moby (and) Rich take the John-and-Yoko-Bed-In theme to a delightful extreme. I predict you will also sit totally rapt as the duo – still clad in color-coordinating blue pajamas — cruise in their tiwn beds out onto the streets of downtown LA while singing about their dream of finding an ideal other — a “Yoko Ono Muse” if you will — who completes them. Can you even imagine how much fucking fun this video was to film? I can’t even.
Aurally, “Yoko Ono” is a stone groove: a wistful love song floating in on a trip-hop beat that’s just the perfect mix of electronica and blue-eyed soul that would turn Daryl Hall green with envy. I fucking love it, and I think you will as well. “Yoko Ono” the single is out now on TaP Records, and it will eventual show up on the duo’s forthcoming debut EP. Enjoy!
All Photos By Gail. Click on Any Image to Enlarge for Detail.
99% of the time, Yoko Ono is a subject that just takes too long to talk about. Whether you love her or hate her, few would deny that Ono is one of the more polarizing Pop Culture figures of the past fifty years. Most people likely know her as John Lennon’s second wife, as well as his primary post-Beatles artistic/musical partner, and have probably based their opinion on the couple’s various collaborations — which are quite well known. But before Yoko Ono even metJohn Lennon, she was a groundbreaking visual artist whose extremely unique and original ideas about what constitutes a viable work of ‘Art’ were fucking with people’s heads. Just being serious. Continue reading Yoko Ono’s One Woman Show 1960 – 1971 at MOMA→
James Cohan Gallery is currently hosting a diverse a group exhibition entitled By Proxy, which Geoffrey and I stumbled upon during our most recent art crawl.
Oliver Laric, Yuanmingyuan Columns
The exhibit title, By Proxy, referes to what Marcel Duchamp called “aesthetic osmosis” — the process by which an artist transfers responsibility to a viewer, empowering them to complete the work out in the world. This idea, of art as shared enterprise, is the theme of this exhibition. Here, the word proxy encompasses the tools and techniques that complete artworks away from the artist’s hand. This exhibition is concerned with those tools and techniques, the effects they can have, and the instances when an idea calls for more than just the artist to take form.
Xu Zhen, Eternity – Aphrodite of Knidos
By Proxy includes Duchamp’s assisted readymade With Hidden Noise, a ball of string with an unknown object rattling inside it; embroidery works by Alighiero Boetti; three drawings from John Cage’s 1990 series River Rocks and Smoke, in which chance operations are performed by smoke settling in the fibers of the paper; Oliver Laric’s Yuanmingyuan Columns, a new work created with 3D scans of Chinese cultural artifacts ensconced in Bergen, Norway; Yoko Ono’s seminal chess set and war allegory Play it By Trust; and a work from Xu Zhen’s recent Eternity series, which juxtaposes the East and West by mounting headless replicas of key Hellenistic and Buddhist sculptures neck to neck.
Play It By Trust, Chess Board Detail (above) and Sign (below), which appears on the backs of each chair.
Xu Zhen, Under Heaven
Detail from Above Painting
The exhibition incorporates work from the past century to the present day. Participating artists are Francis Alÿs, Alighiero Boetti, John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, Wade Guyton, Oliver Laric, Lee Mingwei, Sol LeWitt, Yoko Ono, Jon Rafman, Mariah Robertson, Siebren Versteeg and Xu Zhen. Definitely worth checking out.
By Proxy will be on Exhibit Through January 17th, 2015 at James Cohan Gallery, Located at 533 West 26th Street, in the chelsea Gallery District. Hours are Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM.
All Photos By Gail, Click on Any Image to Enlarge for Detail
Summer weather has finally come to NYC and – after hiding in your apartment for six months – it’s the perfect time to get outdoors on the weekends, explore the city, and even get to the outer boroughs, which I hardly ever do. This past Saturday, Geoffrey and I went exploring in the far off land of Queens to check out the Socrates Sculpture Park and its current exhibit, Do it Outside! Woo! Continue reading Socrates Sculpture Park Presents: Do It Outside→
