--- title: Yoko Ono One-Woman Show at Museum of Modern Art: A History of Her Work description: Her artistic career predates her association with the Beatles canonical: https://time.com/3850309/yoko-ono-moma-happenings-history/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-17T13:00:13.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:41:06.129Z article:section: History og:title: Yoko Ono One-Woman Show at Museum of Modern Art: A History of Her Work og:description: TIME was not the only one critical of the 'entrepreneur of happenings' og:url: https://time.com/3850309/yoko-ono-moma-happenings-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt653c7b7ed6830ec5/6987eec2e20a875f3ea89470/150507-yoko-ono-moma.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Yoko Ono with Standing Woman (1932) by Gaston Lachaise, The Museum of Modern Art Sculpture Garden, New York. c. 1960–61. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Yoko Ono One-Woman Show at Museum of Modern Art: A History of Her Work twitter:description: TIME was not the only one critical of the 'entrepreneur of happenings' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt653c7b7ed6830ec5/6987eec2e20a875f3ea89470/150507-yoko-ono-moma.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How the Art World Changed Its Mind About Yoko Ono ## Video: 10 Questions for Yoko Ono [Watch (HLS stream): 10 Questions for Yoko Ono](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/w8V3kv0s.m3u8) (5:56)  _Published 2013-09-04. Yoko Ono talks to TIME about her new album, working with her son, and why she's still an activist_  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. May 17, 2015 1:00 PM UTC  Yoko Ono with Standing Woman (1932) by Gaston Lachaise, The Museum of Modern Art Sculpture Garden, New York. c. 1960–61. Yoko Ono with Standing Woman (1932) by Gaston Lachaise, The Museum of Modern Art Sculpture Garden, New York. c. 1960–61.Minoru Niizuma—Courtesy Lenono Photo Archive, New York  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. May 17, 2015 1:00 PM UTC Yoko Ono made her “unofficial” debut at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1971, by advertising a “one woman show” that didn’t actually exist. What a difference four decades makes. “[Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960–1971](https://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1544),” a [new MoMA exhibition](http://ti.me/1bAUX2w) of her work opening May 17, is a belated recognition of the importance of Ono’s conceptual and performance art in the 1960s. But MoMA isn’t the only institution that did not give Ono much attention in the years before her name was linked to John Lennon’s. Her early work was pretty far out, and it was clear that not everybody got it. Case in point: When Ono made her first appearance in TIME in 1966 as part of [a report](http://time.com/vault/issue/1966-09-23/page/47) on the scene at a week-long “Destruction in Art Symposium” in London, the magazine’s eye-rolling tone was clear as it described her “fey Zen variant on the dominant theme” to “spread out a cloth on which she drew the outlines of people’s shadows, then \[fold\] it up to take their shadows prisoner.” ### See Photos From Yoko Ono's MoMA Exhibit  Yoko Ono stands next to Standing Woman, 1932, by Gaston Lachaise at The Museum of Modern Art Sculpture Garden in New York, circa 1960–61. Courtesy Lenono Photo Archive  Painting to See in the Dark (Version 1), 1961 George Maciunas  Painting to Be Stepped On, 1960/1961 George Maciunas  Touch Poem #5, circa 1960 Yoko Ono  Grapefruit, 1964 Yoko Ono  Works by Yoko Ono poster for Yoko Ono's performance at the Carnegie Recital Hall in New York on Nov. 24, 1961. George Maciunas  Cut Piece, 1964, performed by Yoko Ono in New Works of Yoko Ono at the Carnegie Recital Hall in New York on March 21, 1965. Courtesy Lenono Photo Archive  Bag Piece, 1964, performed by Yoko Ono in Perpetual Fluxfest at the Cinematheque in New York on June 27, 1965. George Maciunas  Sky Machine, 1966 Yoko Ono  Apple, 1966 Yoko Ono  Half-A-Room, 1967 Yoko Ono  WAR IS OVER! if you want it, 1969 Yoko Ono  Museum of Modern \[F\]art, 1971 Yoko Ono A year later, Ono merited a paragraph under the headline for her recent “show-biz flop.” As TIME [reported](http://time.com/vault/issue/1967-08-18/page/46): --- > “” --- By 1968, she had become linked with Lennon, [first](http://time.com/vault/issue/1968-06-21/page/44) as a “free female soul” with whom he was opening an art exhibit—and [soon after](http://time.com/vault/issue/1968-07-12/page/40) as the avant-garde artist for whom he was leaving his wife Cynthia. Decades later, though her relationship with Lennon has remained a defining element of her public life, the museum at which she was once able to mount only a theoretical show is giving her a real solo exhibition. 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