The City of Hiroshima has selected Ms. Yoko Ono as the winner of the 8th Hiroshima Art Prize
Yoko Ono. Photo by Charlotte Muhl and Sean Lennon, 2009. Courtesy of Yoko Ono
About the Hiroshima Art Prize
Established by the City of Hiroshima in 1989, the Hiroshima Art Prize recognizes the achievements of artists who have contributed to the peace of humanity in the field of contemporary art, and through contemporary art aims to appeal to a wider world and the spread the “Spirit of Hiroshima,” which seeks everlasting world peace. This prize is awarded once every three years.
Past recipients include: Issey Miyake (fashion), 1st Hiroshima Art Prize recipient; Robert Rauschenberg (fine art), the 2nd Hiroshima Art Prize recipient; Nancy Spero and Leon Golub (fine art), the 3rd Hiroshima Art Prize recipients; Krzysztof Wodiczko (fine art), the 4th Hiroshima Art Prize; Daniel Libeskind (architecture), the 5th Hiroshima Art Prize recipient; Shirin Neshat (fine art), the 6th Hiroshima Art Prize recipient; and Cai Guo-Qiang (fine art), the 7th Hiroshima Art Prize recipient.
About Yoko Ono, and Reasons for awarding the Hiroshima Art Prize
Yoko Ono has been active as a creative force for over a half century in various fields as an artist, filmmaker, poet, musician, performance artist and peace activist.
Born in Tokyo in 1933, Ono entered the Philosophy Department of Gakushuin University in 1952. The following year she moved to New York City where she studied music and poetry at Sarah Lawrence College. Soon after, she joined Fluxus, an avant-garde artistic group, where she presented experimental works of art blending forms such as poetry, music, visual arts, film and performance. In 1961, Ono started to exhibit works of art that took the forms of “instructions.” These works involved displaying a set of written “instructions,” with the objective of inviting the viewers to use their power of imagination and participate actively in the creation of the work of art. In this way, her “instructions” were pioneering works in conceptual art, one of the art trends that emerged from the 1960′s. Afterwards, Ono continued to create new forms of artistic expression that used diverse media and were not limited to strict specific genres.
In addition to her activities as an artist, Yoko Ono had been actively involved in pro-peace activities, and after her marriage to John Lennon in 1969, the couple created numerous events supporting world peace and anti-war campaigns. Throughout the 1970′s, their messages of peace spread across the globe and became symbolic representations of the international peace movement. Even after the death of John Lennon in 1980, Ono continued to communicate her message of “Love and Peace”.
The awarding of the Hiroshima Art Prize to Yoko Ono acknowledges the substantial role her activities have in transmitting the message of the “Spirit of Hiroshima” throughout the entire world.
The 8th Hiroshima Art Prize Commemorative Exhibition
An awards ceremony is scheduled for July 2011 together with an exhibition commemorating the presentation of the award to Yoko Ono at the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art.
It is greatly anticipated that this commemorative exhibition will help communicate, from Hiroshima to the world, the messages of Yoko Ono that are rich with the inspiration of the abolition of nuclear weapons and the creation of a world without war, and it is thought that the exhibition will have a great effect on garnering attention to this Hiroshima Art Prize across the globe.
www.hcmca.cf.city.hiroshima.jp
