Names and faces
■ Japanese-American artist Yoko Ono became a global celebrity through her marriage to John Lennon, her partner for more than a decade until his murder in 1980, as well as her collaborator on peace-protest “bed-ins” and in the Plastic Ono Band. Yet that period forms just a small part of an exhibition opening this week at the Tate Modern gallery in London. One of the largest shows of Ono’s work ever mounted, it includes seven decades of work by the artist, who turns 91 Sunday. More than 200 artworks — including film, music, soundscapes, paintings, drawings and sculptures — trace Ono’s career from the 1950s and 1960s New York. Then it’s on to London, where Ono met the movers and shakers of Swinging Sixties counterculture — including, fatefully, Lennon, who went to see her show at a London gallery. “It was really important to give that kind of texture and set the foundation of how she developed her practice before she came to London — before the moment of meeting John Lennon,” co-curator Juliet Bingham said Tuesday at a preview of the exhibition. “She was really at the forefront of conceptual art.” The exhibition includes the couple’s “War Is Over” billboard and footage of their famous 1969 Montreal bed-in, as well as an earlier work in which they sent world leaders pairs of acorns, asking them to plant “oak trees for world peace.” Politicians’ terse typed replies are displayed alongside. “Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind” opens Thursday and runs through Sept. 1 at Tate Modern in London.
■ Online commenters ribbed Alicia Keys for the botched opening notes of “If I Ain’t Got You” during Usher’s halftime performance. During the Sunday broadcast, her voice cracked as she started singing. But early Monday, the NFL published a video of the halftime show on its YouTube page that featured an altered version. In the YouTube video, Keys, 43, smoothly sings the first notes and carries on without a hitch. Social media users quickly pointed out the change in audio comparing side-by-side clips of the original video clip and the YouTube video. Representatives for the NFL, Apple Music and Keys did not respond to requests for comment. Video of the original performance, which has more than 265,000 likes, was still viewable on the NFL’s Instagram account Monday afternoon. Keys and Usher also performed a duet of their 2004 hit, “My Boo.” Keys’ husband, Swizz Beatz, responded to the backlash Monday morning on Instagram. “We don’t do negative vibes on this side we make history,” he wrote.