Gallery 360°
Closes in 10 days
Imagine you are in a typical gallery, minimal with white walls and concrete floors. Four maps of Tokyo past and present surround you, and beside them sit rubber stamps of the words "I LOVE YOU," "HEAL," "REMEMBER," "WAKE" and "OPEN." Do you lift the ink pad and stamp away, or do you watch others?
If you stamp, do you find a place of personal significance or think graphically? Do you smudge or press hard till the ink runs dry? Perhaps you try to be original and obliterate a place or create a symbolic shape.
This is the situation Yoko Ono presents us with in her current installation titled "OPEN," now showing at Gallery 360° (www.360.co.jp). For Ono -- the conceptual artist whose name precedes her art -- "the streets and squares of the city are like the veins and blood vessels of the human body lying beneath." Past pains prevent us from truly communicating with each other, but now "it's time to be open."
In line with the exhibition's theme, Ono presents a large white canvas on which viewers can leave their thoughts. "I expected more of you!" writes one participant, while another, more on Ono's forthcoming wavelength asks, "Why does it hurt to open?"
As with most conceptual art, you either get this show or you don't. Should you see it or not? Should you stamp or write? Be open or closed? Though the choice is up to you, in light of the show's mood, you should probably at least turn up and be open to what's on offer.
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