How Yoko Ono Met John Lennon at a Solo Exhibition in 1966

Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Yoko, a new biography about Yoko Ono from author David Sheff. It releases March 25 from Simon and Schuster.

On September 14, 1966, there was an announcement in the International Times of an exhibition of “Instruction Paintings” by the “Japanese-born American artist Yoko Ono” at Indica Gallery, 6 Mason’s Yard, St. James, London, co-owned by artist John Dunbar.

The exhibition, “Unfinished Paintings and Objects by Yoko Ono,” included pieces that Yoko had shown in the past as well as new work. There was a Painting to Be Stepped On and an Add Colour Painting, which consisted of white wood panels meant to be painted on by visitors (brushes and cans of paint were nearby on a white chair). Eternal Time, set on a pedestal, was a version of Clock Piece that had a ticking second hand but no minute or hour hands. Sky TV was a closed- circuit TV that “brought the sky” into the gallery (a skyward-facing camera was set up on the roof). Painting to Shake Hands (Painting for Cowards) was built from the instructions “Drill a hole in a canvas and put your hand out from behind. Receive your guests in that position. Shake hands and con- verse with your hands.”

Yoko created a chess set with a completely white board—that is, all the squares were white—and all white pieces. It was displayed on a white table with a pair of white chairs. (She later changed its title, White Chess Set, to an instruction: Play It by Trust, and in 1987, Yoko sent a Play It by Trust set to US president Ronald Reagan and to Mikhail Gorbachev, general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The meaning of the piece was less whimsical at the time of the Cold War with its message: War is futile; we’re all the same, and we have to trust each other to achieve peace.) A piece called Forget It was a sewing needle. It was realized through the instruction in the title. “Once I give the instruction ‘Forget it,’ you can never forget it,” Yoko explained. Mending Piece 1 was a broken teacup “to be mended in your mind,” one of many mending pieces she created that were inspired by the Japanese art of kintsugi, repairing broken ceramics with gold or other metals to celebrate rather than hide imperfections. This version was a broken porcelain teacup displayed alongside a tube of glue. The instructions for a later version of Mend Piece explained the work: “You are supposed to mend the cup. You might think you’re just mending a cup, but you’re actually mending something within you.”

Helped by Tony, art students, and gallery assistants Dunbar had recruited, Yoko worked on these and other pieces until, on November 7, 1966, she was putting finishing touches on the show, readying for the opening the following day.

A few days earlier, Dunbar had run into John Lennon and told him about an exhibition he was staging at Indica. He mentioned Yoko’s Bag Piece—people would be getting into a huge bag and doing . . . whatever they wanted. John took Dunbar up on the invitation to visit the gallery and showed up at Indica the night before the opening of Yoko’s show. She wasn’t happy that Dunbar had let someone in early. What’s he doing? she thought.

“The place wasn’t really opened, but John Dunbar, the owner, was all nervous, like, ‘The millionaire’s come to buy something,’” John recounted. “He’s flittering around like crazy. Now I’m looking at this stuff. There’s a couple of nails on a plastic box. Then I look over and see an apple on a stand—a fresh apple on a stand with a note saying ‘Apple.’ I thought, you know, This is a joke, this is pretty funny. I was beginning to see the humor of it.

John asked Dunbar, “How much is the apple?”

“Two hundred pounds.”

“Really? Oh, I see. So how much are the bent nails?”

Then Dunbar brought Yoko over and introduced her to John. John was waiting for something to happen—an event, the bags he’d been told about. “Where’s the people in the bag, you know? All the time I was thinking about whether I’d have the nerve to get in the bag with whoever. You know, you don’t know who’s gonna be in the bag.”

He finally asked, “Well, what’s the event?”

In reply, Yoko handed him a card that said “Breathe” on it.

John said, “You mean—” and he panted.

Yoko said, “That’s it, you’ve got it.”

I’ve got it! John thought.

John turned his attention back to the apple on a stand. He grabbed it and took a bite. Yoko was shocked and upset. The piece was about the cycle of life—the apple would rot and eventually disintegrate. It hadn’t occurred to her that someone might take a bite out of her sculpture. Though she was miffed, she was also impressed by his audacity.

John wanted to do something. He saw a ladder leading up to the ceiling where there was a spyglass hanging down. “I went up the ladder and I got the spyglass and there was tiny little writing there [on the ceiling].” When you balanced precariously at the top of the ladder and looked at the ceiling through the magnifying glass, you could read, in tiny script, the word yes.

That tiny yes impressed John. “Well, all the so-called avant-garde art at the time and everything that was supposedly interesting was all negative, this smash-the-piano-with-a-hammer, break-the-sculpture boring, negative crap. It was all anti-, anti-, anti-. Anti-art, anti-establishment. And just that ‘yes’ made me stay in a gallery full of apples and nails instead of just walking out saying, ‘I’m not gonna buy any of this crap.’”

The nails John was referring to were part of another piece on display, Painting to Hammer a Nail. This version of a piece Yoko had first conceived five years earlier was a white wooden panel hanging on the wall. A hammer dangled on a chain and there was a can of nails on a chair below the board. John asked if he could hammer a nail into the piece of wood, but Yoko said no. Yoko would joke about it later: “It’s so symbolic, you see—the virginal board—for a man to hammer a nail in.” Dunbar gave Yoko a pointed look and said, “Let him hammer a nail in.” John later observed that Dunbar was probably thinking, He’s a millionaire, he might buy it. But Yoko cared more about how it looked than selling it. Yoko and Dunbar conferred, and finally she turned to John and said, “Okay, you can hammer a nail in for five shillings.”

“Well, I’ll give you an imaginary five shillings and hammer an imaginary nail in,” John shot back.

“And that’s when we really met,” he said. “That’s when we locked eyes and she got it and I got it.”

…

The Indica exhibition opened as planned, with a fresh apple to replace the one John had bitten into. A glittery crowd of beautiful people flowed through the gallery, inspecting the works and following Yoko’s instructions. Outside, there was a party in Mason’s Yard.

The Indica show stayed up for two weeks, over the course of which Yoko visited the gallery most days and often staged events, including Bag Piece, in which she and Tony and others got in bags. (John missed his chance, but he would get in the bag later.)

“[The show] was a lot of fun but made no money,” Dunbar said. “Not one piece sold.”