Grapefruit

CLOCK PIECE
Select a clock.
Set it on time.
You may rewind the clock but never reset it.
Call it your life clock.
Live accordingly
--1964 spring

Originally published in 1964, Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings is a foundational work of conceptual art. This artist’s book contains “event scores,” instructions that the reader may choose to follow in order to perform a proposed piece of art. This 1970 edition features the original five sections— Music, Painting, Event, Poetry, Object— with a cheeky introduction by John Lennon, plus new works by Ono. Paging through the book, readers can immerse themselves in Ono’s work— taking the book’s instructions literally or constructing her art with their imaginations. Grapefruit offers unparalleled insight into the zeitgeist of the early 1960s when Ono became an influence on Feminism, Conceptualism, and media art. Yoko Ono’s work is in the collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. She was the inaugural artist for the Hirshhorn in the City program, creating a public mural for Union Market in 2017 as a culmination for the exhibition Yoko Ono: Four Works for Washington and the World, celebrating the 10th anniversary of Ono’s Wish Tree, a permanent installation in the Museum’s year-round Sculpture Garden.