Laugh for a week straight. Record the sound of the stars moving. Build a house that screams when the wind blows. This is the instructions in Yoko Ono’s legendary “Grapefruit” from 1964, which has finally been translated into Norwegian. The book is both a collection of poems and concept art. It makes up most of the written work of the Japanese-American artist Yoko Ono, who was married to John Lennon. As translator Simen Hagerup mentions in the afterword: It is not just-just imagining another world. In a time marked by an underlying sense that the inevitable is coming to an end, the imagination can be a potent antidote. Anything can happen “Grapefruit” consists mainly of short instructions to the reader of the type “look at the sun until it is square”. Encouragement for whimsical – often physically impossible – deeds, which do not seem to have any function or benefit beyond being derived from a curiosity. Illustration: From “Grapefruit” by Yoko Ono / Kolon publishing house Most of the “pieces” are very funny. They are playful and underlying, and put the world in a new light. Equally important is that the thought experiments are stimulating. Yoko Ono’s absurd twists of reality have an opening effect – you get the feeling that anything is possible. A drawing at the very beginning encourages the reader to such an opening. The drawing (which is incredibly nice!) Shows a world encapsulated in a glass ampoule. Below it says: “Open this bottle”. The word I get in my head is: magical. Illustration: From “Grapefruit” by Yoko Ono / Kolon publishing house A sensual community The book was written and published in stages throughout the 1960s. It is a mixture of pieces, poems, theoretical texts, drawings – and more. Thematic lines, and repetitive form, create a sense of context. The aesthetics are generally pure and ethereal. We read about snow, pieces of glass, moons, skies, whispers, dripping and melting. It is also very sensual, with tearing, touching, peeling, peeking, opening and closing. “Grapefruit” has a poetic dimension that is not always to be found in conceptual artists, not even those of the time. That makes it very beautiful. Illustration: From “Grapefruit” by Yoko Ono / Kolon publishing house The idea behind the “pieces” – translated from “event scores” – is that any person can create the work by performing it (such as “music scores”, ie sheet music). They are simply the script for shorter performances. The concept is fundamentally democratic, and the cultivation of the collective can be found in several places in the book. For example, where you have to let 500 people think of the same phone number at the same time, and then let everyone in the city think of the word “yes” at the same time, and then: “do so the whole world thinks all the time”. “Common sense prevents you from thinking” “Grapefruit” was first published in 1964. In the same year, Britain has its last execution (which was by hanging), the last Jim Crow laws are repealed in the US, and in Norway the right to free religious practice enshrined in the Constitution. Yoko Ono also comes with peace. Instead of showing the meaninglessness of life, such as the absurd theater of the 1950s and 60s with Samuel Beckett among others, Yoko Ono is positive in spirit. Many of the pieces engage in relativization. One that is about counting stars ends with “this can be done with windows instead of stars”. Instead of breaking down meaning in a destructive way, she uses it as a necessary part of imagining a new world. Photo: From “Grapefruit” by Yoko Ono / Kolon forflag If people did things a little differently, she writes, if the politicians spent a day watching the fountain dance in the nearest park, “(…) then we might have peace”. Here is an indirect societal critique. We have to do things in new ways, we have to use our imagination. Be playful and sensual. Witty and beautiful I could quote this whole book. It is so witty, strange and beautiful that I wish I could have forgotten it, only to be able to read it again. You can read the whole “Grapefruit” in a simple evening, but it is probably best to save on them, the moments of surprise. Maybe you pick up the book one day you get bored and get a sudden urge to do something a little out of the ordinary. If you do not perform these pieces yourself, you quickly imagine that someone else does. That they leave a pea wherever they go, or get a phone that just repeats their voice as an echo. Little people walking around doing lots of weird things. Basically, that’s what we do. news reviewer Photo: Kolon forlag Title: «Grapefruit» Author: Yoko Ono. Rewritten by Simen Hagerup. Genre: Art book / poetry Number of pages: 73 Publisher: Kolon forlag Date: June 2022 YOKO IN OSLO: See the opening of Yoko Ono’s exhibition at Astrup-Fearnley in January 2005.
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“Grapefruit” by Yoko Ono – Reviews and recommendations
