Mending the world, one teacup at a time, Yoko Ono style
A Yoko Ono installation dating back to 1966 is on now at the Rennie Museum. The conceptual piece is designed to bring people together through an act of reparation that is both physical and symbolic.
Art lover/gallery owner Bob Rennie first met Ono in 2009. He was at the Venice Biennale with Mona Hatoum, the first artist to be exhibited at the Rennie Museum.
“Someone came running over and said ‘Yoko Ono wants to walk through your show,’” Rennie recalled.
The gallery owner walked the cultural icon through Hatoum’s show. He discussed doing another of Ono’s projects, but that fell through. Then, in 2015, Ono’s New York gallerist Andrea Rosen called Rennie about Mend. “She said, ‘This is the piece.’”
In Ono’s Mend Piece, up to 10 people sit at a table. Using twine and tape, they attempt to assemble porcelain shards into a semblance of a teacup. Everything is white, from the walls to the table and chairs to the tape holders and cup and saucer shards.
“There’s no right way to put the pieces together,” Rennie said. “You construct it the way you imagine. The idea is that you end up talking to strangers at the table. While you are mending the teacup it leads to questions: How are we going to solve our problems? How are we going to fix things? And there’s no answer, except talking to each other.”
Ono had little direct involvement in the installation at the Rennie Museum. “Her studio was involved and made sure all of the documentation was adhered to and that we understood it properly,” Rennie said.
The piece comes with a set of instructions specifying everything from the number of chairs to the dimensions of the table. And that no cups, mended or otherwise, are allowed to leave the premises.
“Yoko doesn’t want 3,000 cups out there and people saying ‘I have a Yoko Ono cup.’”
To enhance the craft-like activity, and encourage conversation, coffee is served.
“I just think the idea of having a coffee in your hand, and talking to strangers, talking to friends, leads to talking about deeper issues. Not just the sound bite, that keyboard courage we’re so used to — that one sentence that comes out, the anger comes out. Get to the second, third and fourth sentences and paragraphs.
“I’m in love with the work,” Rennie added. “I thought it was an important addition to the collection, because it spoke to a lot of other works.”
Response has been enthusiastic, and the museum has extended the dates it will display Mend Piece.
Rennie isn’t surprised by the positive response.
“If you’re under 40, Yoko is a cultural figure and an artist. If you’re over 55, she broke up The Beatles. It’s got that bandwidth.”
Ono is apparently happy that the installation ended up where it has.
“When we acquired it, she said to Andrea Rosen, ‘Oh, I like this collection so much. I like these guys. I think I should just give it to them. But I won’t.’ She wants to be validated as an artist.”