YOKO ONO Yoko At Indica Brochure (Relic-rare 1966 UK 5½" x 11"
brochure for her exhibition of Unfinished Paintings & Objects which ran
at John Dunbar's Indica Gallery between November 8th to 18th 1966.
This item has a special place in the history of late Twentieth Century
music & popular culture as it was the first time that John Lennon met
Yoko Ono. The history of the details of the meeting is contested,
however it seems that Lennon visited the exhibition on 9th November
1966 as Yoko was setting up, he was introduced by Dunbar and
caused consternation by taking a bite out of an apple which was part
of the exhibition [titled 04 Apple 1966 in the brochure]. He is also
have said to have tried to hammer a nail in to a piece [P7 Painting To
Hammer A Nail in the brochure] electing to pay Yoko five imaginary
shillings to hammer an imaginary nail in the piece. What is certain is
that soon afterwards they embarked on a secret affair which would
ultimately see them together off and on until Lennon's death in 1980.
The brochure is, like most things Yoko touches, quite innovative and
hard to classify. All the images of the exhibits are on perforated,
gummed sheets, three images per page, which are designed to be
torn off and stuck to the corresponding pages detailing the titile and
artists explainaiton within. The interior pages [20 pages] are split into
a top half & bottom half, the top half being for the exhibits and the
bottom half containing Yoko's ideas about art, her sales list, a
discussion from Tokyo 1964 and quite more oblique writings. The
inside of the front cover shows a fantastic full-length of Yoko all in
black, which would have been how she looked when Lennon met her
for the first time. This items has been carefully preserved by its
original owner since he saw the exhibition over fifty years ago.
Although the item is complete with the images all still uncut and intact,
over the years the natural moisture in the air has caused the gummed
paper to become stuck together, meaning that most of the images can
not be seen. We feel that it may be possible to restore this item as the
corners have become free with light coaxing, however it may take
more specialist techniques than we are able to employ, so we offer it
now as is described. This is an astoundingly rare piece of literal
history, from an exhibition by a then unheard of artist, which ran for
only ten days in a small gallery. The shock waves that were to follow
can not have been imagined)
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