[Frameworks] Yoko Ono at Poetry Foundation

[Bernard Roddy]

Yesterday I attended a screening of work by Yoko Ono at the Poetry
Foundation.

The introduction (and presumably the programming) was done by the editor of
the magazine for poetry. The structure housing the foundation, I
discovered, prides itself on its design, placing it in the precincts of
extreme privilege and affluence (rather like the Graham Foundation, another
essential resource for urban avant-garde practice).

The first film was just documentation. I say "just" but the camera is
credited to the Maysles brothers, who filmed her performance, Cut Piece. I
thought of my own documentation of Carlos Salazar Lermont's performance
contribution to the series, Living Architecture, last year. I compare the
two only because Carlos has never expressed any interest in my video, but
also because in order to get my shots I had to be all over him as he
performed. The Maysles film brings to mind an image of a performance that
includes a guy with a camera.

Ono sat on stage as members of the audience took turns cutting pieces of
her dress with a scissors she supplied . . until a guy cut her down to her
bra and she sat now positioned with her hands over her breasts. It was
interesting to compare this kind of performance with what I learned to
admire in someone like Abramovic. It was as if Ono hadn't really envisioned
what it would be like, and was taken aback even in the short period of time
documented in the film that was screened. The film ends before the
performance, and a viewer would not be able to envision just how Cut Piece
is concluded on the basis of this film alone.

I had never seen Ono's film, Fly. Can I call this concept filmmaking? Do I
have to use the term "poetry" or some such similar reference to language? I
imagine her asking friends to do something that sounds very odd. I want to
know how the conversation went before the bed was set up and the cameraman
prepared.

Bernie
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