Peace in Public Hands
- Management
- Feb 17
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 18
Many of us, whether we think we’re above it or not, are guilty of believing that our underbaked philosophies are of equal value to those that have been formed carefully, drawn from wisdom and connection and courageous observation. As the decade has unfurled, our collective self-righteousness has seemed to skyrocket in a non-correlative direction as our collective sanity. I felt this keenly at Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA), where everyone has something to say and absolutely none of it felt urgent or compelling.
Yoko Ono has had a tough reputation to overcome. While I find her to be a legitimately brilliant woman who processes an unjust world through an authentically human action, she has been continuously overshadowed by artists in her orbit with a bigger platform and a supposedly Bigger Thing to Say. While the Fluxus movement had its moments of unparalleled genius, it still walked a little too closely to the cult of the self during those prime development years for neoliberalism. It is perhaps only a linear unfairness that the artists of the 60s with interesting things to say coincided with a developing sense of political consciousness that was quickly subsumed by the free market ideologies of the Reagan years, thus transformed into the [redacted] Democratic strategy that defines our present era. Somehow though, rather than use this opportunity for Ono to assert herself and the true radical nature of her artistic identity, the exhibition invites forms of engagement from the audience. What most people have to say, in environments such as these, is neither a conviction nor, in fact, a real opinion on the unjust world. Instead, the audience engagements in Music of the Mind seemed to be performing themselves as individuals who value the ever-diminishing possibility of collective harmony. Or at least nonviolence. Reading through the desires tied to trees, like prices tags on sweaters at a rummage sale, I felt we had lost the plot of using our collective powers to work together.
We have made it so easy to see ourselves everywhere, and I don’t know if anyone else finds it excruciating to be inundated with our manipulated reflections. There is pressure in withstanding a deluge of external reassurance that what we personally see/feel/believe/execute is so important to evangelize. We are desperate to be understood by our loved ones, by those we hold near, by those who are bearing witness, or recording, or posting without consent. Under such pressures, it becomes difficult to know when the performance is working, which part of that performance is being captured for distribution and consumption. When I walked into the "Add Color (Refugee Boat)" at the center of the show where a narrow, lonely canoe tilted on dry land, I felt a reactive repulsion when the blue scrawls covering the walls and floor became distinct words and phrases contributed by attendees from the general public.
In addition to the predictably timely sentiments befitting a social media bio, the room is covered in such timeless sentiments as “BE WILD BE CRAZY DO SHIT” “You Are loved!” “Obama 2028” “GET MORE LESBIAN NOW [with 21 exclamation points]” and the ever-poignant “$”. What was intended to solicit daring compassion for humans who seek a better life during the most inhospitable circumstances quickly became the equivalent of a dive bar bathroom wall. I may be out-of-touch, but I believe there is still a way to engage with art that decentralizes the self and makes space for a more profound experience to emerge from a meeting between our miraculous consciousness and the object before our eyes, created in a different time and from a different miraculous consciousness. Anyway, shout-out to the ambitious participants leaving their TikTok handles in the text. May your performative identity live on.
I escaped from the cacophony of the blue room into a room where “Helmets (Pieces of Sky)” was installed. As I leaned forward to peer into one of the eye-level war helmets containing puzzle pieces with bits of sky printed on the surface, a gallery attendee sidled up to me and began to explain the project. “Everyone is invited to take a piece of the sky!” he said, holding out a puzzle piece he intended for me to accept. One side was printed with “y.o. Chicago 2025” as a nod to the relentless opportunism of self-promotion. I pinched the little cardboard shape between my fingers while he spent a little more time explaining what I thought, at truly first glance, to be self-explanatory. Take home a piece of the sky! We are all living here on this earth together! Bring peace to the world! I quickly moved on.
There are less egregious elements in Music of the Mind, including videos of Ono’s early, near-perfect performances from the 60s and 70s, and opportunities to interact with objects alone or with another person, increasing chances of intimacy with other attendees and connection with a truer form of the artist’s original intent. You can shake hands with a stranger, wriggle yourself inside a bag, and pound a nail into a board. But other participatory elements felt pandering to a lower denomination of engagement, one that too easily plays to the fallacy of universal truths and experiences, which greater radicals have convincingly debunked. The most important takeaway from this exhibition was that crowds of people will pay to see it, and will use the performative participatory elements to feel like they got their money’s worth. Yoko Ono, whom for so many has endured as an icon of peace and harmony, is converting our scribbled banalities into profit, the only authentic way participatory art escapes the museum.
I chucked the puzzle piece into the trash can near the exit and dodged the throng of newcomers climbing up the few final stairs. Their phones were already out.
Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA)
Until February 22, 2026
Want another perspective? Here’s two additional reviews of the show.
