Saturday 17 November at Proyecto AMIL

3pm
Museo de Arte de Lima – MALI
Exhibition opens

6pm
Proyecto AMIL
Talk with the curators Gunnar B. Kvaran and Agustín Pérez Rubio, moderated by artist Natalia Iguiñiz

8pm
Proyecto AMIL
Opening

Exhibitions dates
18 November 2018 – 16 February 2019

Proyecto AMIL
Lima

Proyecto AMIL, in collaboration with the Museo de Arte de Lima – MALI, is delighted to present Yoko Ono. Universo Libre, the first retrospective exhibition of Ono in Peru, curated by Gunnar B. Kvaran and Agustín Pérez Rubio.

Ono is an essential figure in conceptual art, performance, and the Fluxus movement. The artist was one of the pioneers in questioning the concept of the artwork as an object, breaking the traditional boundaries between artistic disciplines. Along these lines, the exhibition gathers around 60 pieces; including texts, objects, videos, films, installations and sound recordings produced from the mid 1950s to the present. The cornerstone of the show are the Instruction Pieces: a series of artworks that Ono has been producing for more than 60 years and consist of simple and poetic messages through which she invites the viewers to become co-creators of her work.

Within the framework of the exhibition, Ono has invited Peruvian and Latin American women who have been victims of gender violence to take part in Arising. This project collects the testimonies of gender violence – a text that describes the experience and a photograph of the participant’s eyes – in a large installation that will be physically located in the MALI and virtually on the Proyecto AMIL website. Through their participation, Ono seeks to offer women, whose bodies and minds have been affected by violence, a space of catharsis and healing; as well as to show the public the brutality of this violence so that it will not be perpetrated again.

— Click here to view the Arising testimonies —

Additionally, for the exhibition Ono has brought together a group of eight Latin American artists – four men and four women: Teresa Burga (Iquitos, 1935), Runo Lagomarsino (Lund, 1977), Gilda Mantilla (Los Ángeles, 1967), Teresa Margolles (Culiacán, 1963), Jerry Martin (Bogotá, 1976), Amalia Pica (Neuquén, 1978), Juan Salas (Cuzco, 1982), Oscar Santillán (Quito, 1980)-  to be part of a new edition of the Water Event and produce an  “artwork / vessel” capable of “taking water” to the people who need it: either to heal their minds or to recognize their courage in expressing themselves. Ono will symbolically complete the work of the participating artists by providing the “water”. The Water Event will be on display at Proyecto AMIL.

In Yoko Ono. Universo Libre, the artist seeks to open as many channels of communication as possible to expand the reach of a body of work that has always maintained a strong social and political commitment in favour of feminism, pacifism and environmentalism; but also a devotedness to experimentation in the way in which she understands artistic practice and  public participation. In this way, the exhibition not only encompasses the exhibition spaces of Proyecto AMIL and MALI, but extends to the public space. Ono’s Instructions will be, as well, in the streets, the media, the Internet and social networks.

Yoko Ono. Universo Libre comes to Lima after previously being exhibited at MetQUITO in Quito between June and September 2018.  Kvaran and Pérez Rubio also curated Yoko Ono. Dream Come True, which was presented at MALBA in Buenos Aires in 2016 and Corpartes in Santiago de Chile in 2017.