"Life is only half a game"
ONO, Yoko. Catalogue of the exhibition Half-a-Wind-Show at the Lisson Gallery. London: Lisson Gallery. 1967.
4to (255 × 205 mm). Four sheets stapled; staples slightly rusted, light creasing to lower corners, otherwise very good.
Exceptionally rare exhibition catalogue from Yoko Ono’s groundbreaking 1967 solo show at the Lisson Gallery, London.
The exhibition featured Half-a-Room, one of Ono’s most iconic early installations, in which several household objects – a chair, a bookshelf, a hat, a man’s shoe, among others – were painted white and literally sawn in half. The work served as both a poetic and painful meditation on absence, created in the aftermath of the artist’s separation from her second husband, Anthony Cox. Responding to a suggestion that she might also include “half a person” in the show, Ono remarked: “Somebody said I should also put half a person in the show. But we are halves already.”
John Lennon, who sponsored the exhibition, was jointly credited with Ono for the creation of Air Bottles. Running from 11 October to 14 November 1967, Half-a-Wind Show marked a turning point in Ono’s career, signalling her transition from the Fluxus milieu toward a more personal and conceptual body of work that would soon capture international attention.
Library Hub finds two copies in the UK (Tate Britain and the V&A).
#2120895