See Photos From Yoko Ono’s MoMA Exhibit

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Yoko Ono’s art isn’t always easy to follow—literally. In 1971, the avant-garde artist and musician exhibited an unauthorized show at New York’s Museum of Modern Art called Museum of Modern (F)art that featured little more than a man waiting outside the building with a sandwich board encouraging visitors to chase flies she had released in and around the museum. Now, a new exhibit at that same museum, Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960-1971, makes experience her art much easier by bringing together many, often interactive works from that decade in one place. The show, the MoMA’s first one dedicated entirely to Ono’s work, opens May 17 and runs through September 7.

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
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Painting to See in the Dark (Version 1), 1961George Maciunas
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Painting to Be Stepped On, 1960/1961George Maciunas
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Touch Poem #5, circa 1960Yoko Ono
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Grapefruit, 1964Yoko Ono
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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
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Bag Piece, 1964, performed by Yoko Ono in Perpetual Fluxfest at the Cinematheque in New York on June 27, 1965.George Maciunas
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Sky Machine, 1966Yoko Ono
Apple, 1966Yoko Ono
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Half-A-Room, 1967Yoko Ono
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WAR IS OVER! if you want it, 1969Yoko Ono
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Museum of Modern [F]art, 1971Yoko Ono

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Write to Nolan Feeney at nolan.feeney@time.com