Artist Blog - Yoko Ono and Charles Spearin

Today I want to talk about Yoko Ono. She was mentioned during my critique for her use of sound art. I like her work because she dabbles in all sorts of mediums from performance, to video, to music, to sculpture, much like the way I like to work. I also like the simplicity of a lot of it. I couldn't find any of Ono's sound art pieces, only music videos of her dance music, which I wasn't impressed with. I am downloading some of her other music though so when that is done hopefully I will get a better idea of what her sound art is all about. Here are some pictures of her installations which I liked.

Yoko Ono, Painting to hammer a nail in, 1966, dimensions unknown


Yoko Ono, Play it by trust, 1966-1998.

Yoko Ono, Telephone Piece, Ono periodically calls this phone during the exhibition. date unknown

Also Marion suggested I look at Charles Spearin's conceptual album, The Happiness Project.
I listened to the whole thing and it was very interesting how musical a normal voice is. A little critique though; the accompanying music the the voices on the album had a certain style to it which works in most of the songs, but for some, for example in the last track, Mrs. Morris (Reprise), the jazziness of her voice's instrument doesn't really lend itself to the style of most of the album, I think some of the songs could have really benefited from a jazzier back-up ensemble. It was, however, an awesome experiment in the natural rhythms and melodies that I've been trying to talk about some in my work. I coudn't get this video Marion sent me to work on my computer so I found the music elsewhere, but hopefully you can see it: