Yoko Ono Displays John Lennon's Bloodied Clothes

NEW YORK — A new John Lennon exhibit is particularly emotional for his widow, Yoko Ono. Besides Lennon's guitars, letters and other personal effects, it also includes a paper bag containing the bloody clothes from the night he was shot to death.

Ono received the items from the medical examiner in December 1980, when the former Beatle was gunned down in New York City at age 40.

"It was hard to include," Ono said. "And I thought it might be criticized as well."

But ultimately, Ono thought it was important to let people see the effects of gun violence.

The Lennon items are part of a new exhibit that will launch Tuesday at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Annex. "John Lennon: The New York Years" includes Lennon's famous New York City T-shirt, his upright piano from his Dakota apartment, and a posthumous 1981 Grammy Award for the couple's album "Double Fantasy."

"I know it's a kind of a sad and very poignant kind of paradox I think that he loved this place so much and this is where he was killed," she said in an interview after a news conference for the exhibit.

There are also letters documenting Lennon's long-fought battle against deportation in the early 1970s, both from the government and supporters. Glass cases also contain a dozen or so handwritten lyrics.

Ono says Lennon's death still haunts her nearly 30 years later: "I still get affected by it."

"If it (his death) was a slow a process we could have talked about it or something," she added, holding back tears.

The exhibit will be on display throughout 2009.

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On the Net:

http://www.rockannex.com/

Comments

[digapony9]

I attended this exhibit just a week ago and I was incredibly fascinated with it. I love John and his music, as a Beatle or as a solo artist. I saw the bag of bloodied clothes and a picture of the bloodstained glasses. This exhibit was emotional and I applaud Yoko Ono. I have criticized Yoko before but now I understand what a great partner she was to John. So maybe she isn't the best artist and I know that many people dislike her from many reasons, but she did lose her husband! I agree that John was not the best father to Julian or the most loyal husband to Cynthia but he was human. John lost his life for no reason and I believe that, out of respect, John Lennon deserves no criticism at this point.

[iluvnews44]

A little morbid but hard to believe it's been that long since it happened (I was a sophomore in hs) and had just purchased his new album.

[cloudmaker]

Apparently the best way for undertalented people to get rich and famous is to hook up with
somebody talented and famous. Peters did it with Streisand and now he's writing a tell-all
about her. Ono did it with Lennon and while she's not telling how she bled him, she is
showing his blood.

[liliperl]

I saw the feature exhibition and I salute Yoko Ono for doing it and making it available for the public. The paperbag with Lennon's clothes next to the poster w/ Lennon's bloody eye glasses is indeed a sad testimony of not just Lennon's meaningless death but also the meaninglesness of violence. Yoko Ono's conceptualization of the exhibition proves again that she is a great artist and a wonderful human being. I've found the exhibition educative not just in terms of seeing the items on display, but also for scholarly work and classroom teaching in the field of cultural studies.
Thank you Yoko.

[metivo]

I think John would've been fine with this. You know what it reminds me of? When Jackie Kennedy refused to change out of her bloodied suit . . . The real effect of violence sometimes needs to be seen.

[Gasparilla]

Exactly correct. She was urged to change out of that suit, but she got off the plane in Washington wearing it.

[Shannon DeGrazier]

Another of Yoko Ono's 'Conceptual Art' exhibits.

Yawn . . . //-_-\

[digapony9]

I attended this exhibit and can assure you it is not 'conceptual art'. I highly recommend this exhibit which greatly reflects John Lennon and his New York years as well as the tragedies of gun violence.

[ledgetwitchy]

I don't understand why Yoko comes off it being difficult decision to include the bag of clothes and bloody glasses. She included them in the original Lennon exhibit at the Hall of Fame in Cleveland in 2001, along with the other items mentioned in the article. I thought it was a powerful exhibit, but this is certainly not the first time she has displayed them to convey the gun message.

[NHBill]

Cleveland is not New York. By the way were you as disappointed in that Hall of Fame as I was. It's PG at best on what should be a very hard R subject.

[RevBookburn]

Review of basics: Probably 90% of all that is written or said about Yoko Ono, Courtney Love and other life-partners/ spouses of rock gods is fiction. The rock stars (aka the personal property of the fans and have no right to choose their partners) fell in love with their partners for good reason. They are artists and people on their own without the rock gods. If John, Kurt and many others could observe and respond to the ludicrous dissing that continues to this day, they would likely tell such critics what buttheads they are. Rev. Bookburn - Radio Volta

[Sportswoman]

What a gross generalization to state that 90% of what is written is fiction. Sorry but Tony Bramwell, (knew John since childhood, and according to Paul"remembers more about the Beatles than I do")s Cynthia Lennon, Pattie Boyd, (was married to George) May Pang, and others. The Beatles panicked when Epstein died, and they were about to get royally f-d by Allen Klein like everybody did in the 60s.
Yoko persuaded John to go with Klein whom they later sued, as did the Stones and about 90 other people. She is only rich because of John--period. After Brian died the Beatles were vulnerable and accessible. She telephoned Apple every morning, high on smack, according to Bramwell, and then began showing up. Cynthia says she would freak her out standing in the driveway. The art dealer who leased her space told Paul she "i the pushiest woman ever," and "persists until she gets what she wants." What she wanted was control of John, and yes, John was controllable. Yoko was part mother part manager. John was also on heroin with her. Read! She needs to come clean and apologize to Julian and Cynthia Lennon. Imagine coming home to find another woman brazen enough to sleep in your bed with your husband and wear your bathrobe, and wait for you to come home and find her.

[RevBookburn]

As John Lennon said in many interviews: what an insult to him for people who didn't know what they were talking about, to imply that he was manipulated and duped.

[PArnett]

Sorry to say that my esteem for John Lennon plummeted once I realized how badly he treated Julian and Cynthia. After all these years, Yoko is still leveraging John's fame and financial assets in a pathetic attempt to become relevant, but she might as well pack it up and go away. In the end, she has to live with herself, no matter what kind of public display she throws at us.

[kyyletime]

She's quite comfortable in her skin, despite years of snarky, nasty attacks from ill informed haters.

[argyle]

nicely said, kyyletime

[JGatsby]

There is no doubt that John was a sh*t to his first wife. However, those of us that have grown beyond hero worship realize that even people who accomplish great things are still human and have flaws. Hendrix used to hit his girl friends, Wagner was an anti-semite, JFK and FDR cheated on their wives, ...

[Sportswoman]

Different scenarios. JFK also came to realize that he had been unfair to Jackie when the third child Patrick died shortly after birth. According to historian Richard Reeves, he stopped all that and concentrated on his work and family for the 6 months before he was killed. That's the Greek tragedy part.
Lennon also had a lot of anger that Cynthia put up with, only to have him dump her via a letter from his attorney. JFK and FDR loved their children, John ignored Julian for most of his life, particularly when Yoko entered the fray.

[jakkib]

Thank You!!! There is absolutely no doubt of what a great musician this man was. His writing was witty and funny and brillliant as was the man himself. However for someone who says "love is all you need" his son Julian and first wife Cynthia absolutely craved it and never got it from him. Julian himself has said "I can understand him not being around during the mania, but where was he afterward? People need to realize that Sean and Yoko are not his only family". John rarely reached outto his son Julian, especially after Sean arrived. I also read stories of Cynthia coming home and findinYoko in her house. John ended the marriage without telling his wife he was ending it. He really was a great musician, but let's not confuse art with life- he really wasn't that nice a man. Prone to violent outbursts, drug abuse , the whole nine yards- again this is not to take away from the mans genius. But he himself said he was just a man. He needed Yoko; she was the controling, mothering figure he craved. Ono will always dance to her own tune. Why this shocks anybody isa mystery. My little girl know the Beatles very well and she knows Lennon was agreat musician. Period.

[Stranded]

I think it's important to remember that The Beatles were just regular guys who did their best to keep up with insane conditions that would've tested any human being. Ultimately, John never pretended to be more than a very damaged soul, yet he tried to overcome that as best he could, once Yoko entered his life. It was a slow process that he was never able to complete. With the Julian issue, I agree that John does seem to have been terrible to his first son. But who knows whether he might have ultimately come to terms with that, just as he tried to confront all the other issues of his own past and personality. He didn't get the chance. It's a subject I think about a lot when I listen to John's music, and I always come back to the fact that he was only 40 when he was murdered. Knowing what we do about him, it's unlikely that he ever would have stopped growing up.

[Jesse rogers]

It is still hard to "Imagine" that he was just 40 when he died.

[dopamineboy]

All we are saying is give peace a chance!

[WMUHFan]

Wow! I'm not going to talk about whether Ono broke up the Beatles or not. And I'm certainly not going to give her a pass just because John loved her.

From the beginning of the aftermath of his murder, she has constantly played the "victim" card in songs and on her album artwork. I disagreed with it at the time, but I certainly could better understand it, as John had just died. But for how long are we going to be subjected to Yoko Ono telling us how horrible it was that her husband was murdered? It truly was horrible, but no need to keep reminding us about it, and how much of a victim you STILL are.

[NHBill]

Like Jackie Kennedy before her Yoko was right next to him when he was shot to death you inconsiderate snot. John Lennon was one of the world's brightest lights when he was gunned down on his own doorstep! His loss to humanity was cosmic. To think what he might have given us all in these last few decades. He could have held our hands through Regan. He would have been a tower of strength during 9/11. He might have even been influential enough to keep Bush out of the White House. His senseless sudden death was a psychic wound on the entire Baby Boom. I still feel victimized. I can't even imagine how Yoko feels.

P.S. For those who think I exaggerate review just how paranoid Nixon was of Lennon. See his FBI file and the attempts to have him deported. Republicans were scared s#*tless of John.

[Nyland8]

Leave it to the widow Lennon to push out the envelope of art. Next we'll see people making shadow boxes of the contents of old cold case files. Fingernail scrapings, bloody clothes, semen stains, fingerprinted objects-de­-bludgeoni­ng all framed behind glass and festooning the walls of the finest galleries.

And all the fans of CSI, Bones and other gory commercial TV series lined up to see them ... just for the first hand experience. I can hardly wait.

8

[Stranded]

You obviously haven't been keeping up with the art world. Ever heard of Damien Hurst?

[Nyland8]

No ... but I'll look him up.

[Drumbeato]

For those offended by Yoko's inclusion of John's bloody clothing: John & Yoko raised to high art, pushing the envelope publicly on many occasions, in an attempt to send various messages to anyone who might be watching. I have a feeling John would have approved of her choice, in fact, (and I know this sounds strange), he most likely would have even found humor in the subversive edgy manner in which she used the clothes to put forth the message, loud & clear in a very graphic way, that gun violence has real consequences everyone should be aware of. This choice should surprise no one. The loss of John Lennon was one of many great tragedies we have experienced in our lifetimes. I miss his presence in so many ways I can't even count them. I still cry when I think of that terrible night and how we were robbed of all that could have been possible if he had lived. All the more reason to remind people of the horrors of gun violence, even in ways this graphic. BTW, for the blogger asking about their son Sean, he is a musician in his own right, has several great recordings available, and (of course), a Myspace page you can check out. The legacy continues.­....

[rbarthjr]

Don't forget Julian, John's other son, and a musician/singer as well.

[Zofomofo]

Yoko, my heart is with you.

Also, for the record, I think Yoko is an incredible artist. Many don't understand conceptual­/performan­ce art and have mis-understood that because John was famous, that she rode his coat tails. Not true.

Plus, if you are a Lennon fan, remember he loved her and her work. If you don't like her or her work, you don't really understand John.

[SILVANUS]

Well, said. I can rarely listen to her albums, but I appreciate them.

[Furby]

Best one I heard today. So how do you appreciate them? In a kind of non-auditory sort of way? You slap that puppy on and turn the volume off? Can't say I blame you :)

[JGatsby]

What nonsense. I'm no philistine. I can appreciate all kinds of atonal, uncomfortable, and unconventional music. Charles Ives is one of my favorite American classical composers and I like Revolution #9 on the White Album. But I'm not so blinded by hero worship that I confuse banshee screams for music. Yoko ruined several concerts that could have been epic. Frank Zappa and Lennon, Eric Claption, Keith Richards, and Lennon, they could have made amazing music but instead Yoko is there with her unlistanable screaming. I don't really blame her. If I had to assign blame it would be to John who was the musician and should have known better. And I appreciate that he wanted to have a wife that was a real partner, not just some ornamental Barbi like so many of his fellow rock stars. However good intentions and intellectual rationalizations don't make up for awful music which is all Yoko ever created.

[maggiee]

Not true. A lot of what Yoko did with John was screaming (John did quite a bit of it himself) but there actually is a lot more out there you have no doubt not been exposed to.

As a general rule, I myself think opera sounds like screeching but I would never presume to refer to it all as "awful." Art is subjective. it either is or is not one's cup of tea. There is no reason to be nasty about it.

[JenniferEccles]

Please stop condescending to the general public by assuming that we are all a bunch of dummies who are lacking the intellect to understand Ono's "art". Not true. We have seen it and heard it and its not good.

She was barely a blip on the screen before she hooked up with Lennon. Lennon's fame is what put her in the spotlight and without it we would never have been aware of her.

Lennon may have loved her at one time but at the end she was having affairs and back on heroin. Lennon was talking about divorcing her.