Performing Grapefruit
Over the course of Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind at the MCA, performers will periodically realize a selection of Yoko Ono’s instruction scores from Grapefruit (1964). Performances are held most Saturday afternoons and Tuesday evenings. Among the works you may see in this gallery are interpretations of the Ono Instructions on this page.
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Instruction Pieces
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Listen to a heart beat.
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Breathe.
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Make different objects to burn. The objects should be material and complexed. i.e. autobiography, embroidery. mahjong set, carved chair, electric studio, etc. Appreciate the difference of time it takes to burn. The piece is made when they become ashes. Do not use ready-made objects to burn.
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Listen to the clock strokes. Make exact repetitions in your head after they stop.
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Take all the clocks and watches in the town. Set each one to an arbitrary time, arbitrarily, or according to a system that you make. Any system is acceptable as long as none of the clocks are intentionally set to the correct time.
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Maybe the main clock of the world went fast or slow by a second without anybody knowing about it. As long as people do not know about it nothing is disturbed.
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Make all the clocks in the world fast by two seconds without letting anyone know about it.
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Select a clock. Set it on time. You may rewind the clock but never reset it. Call it your life clock. Live accordingly.
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Steal all the clocks and watches in the world. Destroy them.
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Bandage any part of your body. If people ask about it, make a story and tell. If people do not ask about it, draw their attention to it and tell. If people forget about it, remind them of it and keep telling. Do not talk about anything else.
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Talk about the death of an imaginary person. If somebody is interested, bring out a black framed photograph of the deceased and show. If friends invite you, excuse yourself by explaining about the death of the person.
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Keep coughing for a year.
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Count the number of wrinkles on your face or your body or certain parts of your body. Send it to your friend in place of a letter.
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Have a dance party. Let people dance with chairs.
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Select an amount of dollar. Imagine all the things that you can buy with that amount. (a) Imagine all the things that you cannot buy with that amount. (b) Write it on a piece of paper.
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Listen to the sound of the earth turning.
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Polish an orange.
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In entertaining your guest, bring out your laundry of the day and explain to them about each item. How and why it became dirty, and why, etc.
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Draw a map to get lost.
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Wear a blank mask. Ask people to put in wrinkles, dimples, eyes, mouth, etc., as you go.
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Instead of obtaining a mirror, obtain a person. Look into him. Use different people. Old, young, fat, small, etc.
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Count all the words in the book instead of reading them.
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Fold certain parts of a paper and read. Fold a crane and read.
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Question.
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Put your shadows together until they become one.
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Go shake hands with as many persons as possible. Write down their names. Try in the elevator, tube, escalator, street, toilet, on top of a mountain, in the dark, daydream, on the clouds, etc. Make it nice.
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Write all the things you want to do. Ask others to do them and sleep until they finish doing them. Sleep as long as you can.
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Sweep.
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Feel the wall. Examine its temperature and moisture. Take notes about many different walls.
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Hit a wall with your head.
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Whisper.
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Make way for the wind.
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Use any piece of wood. Make different sounds by using different angles of your hand in hitting it. (a) Make different sounds by hitting different parts of it. (b)
Special thanks to Hannah B Higgins, Simon Anderson, and members of the MFA class at University of Illinois Chicago and to Gordon Fong and the members of //sense for their work bringing Grapefruit alive in the MCA’s Yoko Ono: The Music of the Mind.
