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Mended Petal

A huge steel petal juts from the earth. Across the lower part of its surface, raised lines crisscross. Written along one line is "Mended on June 12, 2015" and, lower down, "Yoko Ono."

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  • A huge steel petal juts from the earth. Across the lower part of its surface, raised lines crisscross. Written along one line is "Mended on June 12, 2015" and, lower down, "Yoko Ono."

Date:

2016

Artist:

Yoko Ono
Japanese, born 1933

About this artwork

Yoko Ono is an artist, musician, poet, and peace activist. Since the early 1960s, audience participation and social activism have been crucial aspects of her work. Ono is widely regarded as a pioneer of early conceptual, film, and performance art and is known for her involvement in the Fluxus movement. She collaborated on art and musical projects with her husband John Lennon until his death in 1980 as well. In recent years Ono has focused on environmental protection and human rights in numerous public actions.

Mended Petal is the 13th petal from the artist’s installation Skylanding, a 12-petal lotus sculpture in Chicago’s Jackson Park that rises from the ashes of the Phoenix Pavilion, which was a gift from Japan to the people of Chicago following the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and was destroyed by arson in 1946. In contrast to the smooth petals of Skylanding, Mended Petal shows the seams of its repair, commemorating the ground-healing ceremony the artist held on June 12, 2015, to prepare the site of the lost Phoenix Pavilion for new work.

Metaphors for mending and healing appear often in Ono’s art, such as in Mend Piece (1966), which invited visitors to sit together at a table and repair broken cups using glue, sticky tape, and thread. Such acts of repair refer to the Japanese tradition of kintsugi, in which broken porcelain is mended with lacquer that has been mixed or dusted with gold.

Status

On View, Pritzker Garden

Department

Contemporary Art

Artist

Yoko Ono

Title

Mended Petal

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

Made 2016

Medium

Stainless steel

Dimensions

365.8 × 152.4 × 91.5 cm (144 × 60 × 36 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of the artist and Project 120 Chicago

Reference Number

2016.337

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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