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85.
Yoko Ono at Indica: Unfinished Paintings and Objects by Yoko Ono.
London: Indica Gallery, November 1966. Tall narrow 8vo. Stapled wrps.
Exhibition catalogue for this important show, which ran between November 8-18, 1966, and included versions of Yoko’s Instruction Paintings, several pieces that were realisations of earlier works, as well as new work, most of it all-white or transparent installations.
The catalogue’s unique design features 8 pages with adhesive backing, each one with three perforated photo-illustrations by Iain Macmillan of Yoko’s work. The other 12 interior pages, printed recto and verso, are divided equally into upper and lower sections, the upper half intended for the gummed photographs to be attached, and the lower half containing a selection from Yoko’s writings, including “To the Wesleyan People” (1966); “Yoko Ono - Instruction Painting” (1964); and “Sales List “(1965).
Cover photograph (also by Iain Macmillan) of Yoko Ono, husband Tony Cox, and two gallery assistants. All four are seen wearing white face masks, Yoko’s response to the press reaction to her recently completed “Film No. 4 (Bottoms)”: “If it’s indecent to show your bottom it follows that it is indecent to show other parts of the human body, say the mouth. We cover our mouths with clean linen handkerchiefs and when people walk into the gallery we ask them to do the same.”
The catalogue’s back cover prints a small photograph of John Dunbar biting the apple from Yoko’s eponymous work, a minor act of art vandalism that also tempted John Lennon, incurring Yoko’s displeasure, since the apple was intended to decompose naturally.
Slight rubbing and wear to spine; faint creasing to lower right corner of upper wrapper; light soiling to lower wrapper, o/w a Near Fine, intact copy, without the problems from the gummed illustrations usually associated with this fragile item.
