I was watching a bit of the Winter Olympics opening ceremony this morning, and while the ceremony was by and large pretty cool (I especially liked the acrobats doing the dove dance towards the end), I have to say that I really find Yoko Ono pretty blood pathetic.
She somehow involved herself in the ceremony, reading the lyrics to John Lennon’s Imagine, as some sort of poem to peace, and while I like the song, it’s lyrics, and the unquestionable genius of it’s original creator, I find it pretty sad that whenever Yoko wants to make some public statement or be in some public appearance she trots out Lennon’s work or memory for her own use.
If she had done other things of genuine note then it might be different, but as far as I can tell she’s simply another of those myriad irritating people who have remained famous simply for being associated with someone famous.
As one london Newspaper art critic put it: “”She’s shaped nothing, she’s contributed nothing, she’s simply been a reflection of the times…I think she’s an amateur, a very rich woman who was married to someone who did have some talent and was the driving force behind the Beatles. If she had not been the widow of John Lennon, she would be totally forgotten by now…Yoko Ono was simply a hanger-on. Have you seen her sculpture or paintings? They’re all awful.”
and while there is relative agreement in art circles that her early work in visual and performance art was contributory, she has certainly doesn’t seem to have done anything particularly note worthy in several decades, and the continual riding on the coat tails of John Lennon’s ghost seems rather pathetic and distasteful.