Wish Tree is an ongoing art installation series by Japanese artist Yoko Ono, started in 1996, [1] in which a tree native to a site is planted under her direction. Viewers are usually invited to tie a written wish to the tree except during the winter months when a tree can be more vulnerable. Locations of the piece have included New York City, St. Louis, Wish Tree for Washington, DC , San Francisco, Pasadena, and Palo Alto, California, Tokyo, Venice, Paris, Dublin, London, Exeter, England, Finland and Buenos Aires, Argentina, Calgary.
Her 1996 Wish Piece had the following instructions:
Make a wish. Write it down on a piece of paper. Fold it and tie it around a branch of a Wish Tree. Ask your friends to do the same. Keep wishing. Until the branches are covered with wishes. [2]
Installations have involved from one to 21 trees, and varieties include lemon trees, eucalyptus, and crepe myrtles. To honor wish writers' privacy, Ono claims she does not read the wishes, and collects them all to be buried at the base of the Imagine Peace Tower on Viðey Island in Kollafjörður Bay in Iceland. [1] To date over 1 million wishes have been buried beneath the tower.
The series developed after an installation of one tree in Finland grew into a mini-forest, and Ono felt a continuing social need. She has also said:
As a child in Japan, I used to go to a temple and write out a wish on a piece of thin paper and tie it around the branch of a tree. Trees in temple courtyards were always filled with people's wish knots, which looked like white flowers blossoming from afar. [1]
In fall 2010, Ono performed Voice Piece for Soprano, near the MoMA rendition of the piece as part of the museum's collections show. [3] Musician Pharrell Williams wrote on one in New York in 2013. [4]
Year | City or country | Institution or group, if known | Title, if known | Tree type, if known | Other |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Before 1996 | Finland [1] | ||||
1996 | Alicante, Valencia, Spain [5] | pomegranate [6] [ incomplete short citation ] | |||
2002 | San Francisco [7] | SFMoMA | |||
Exeter, England [8] | |||||
2003 | Venice, Italy | Peggy Guggenheim Collection | Wish Tree Venice 2003. To Peggy with Love x Yoko | olive tree [9] | Permanent installation |
2007 | Washington, DC | Hirshhorn Museum gardens | Wish Tree for Washington, DC | dogwood [10] | |
São Paulo [8] | |||||
2008 | Pasadena, California | One Colorado shopping center | Wish Tree for Pasadena | 21 crepe myrtle trees | Permanently installed at Arlington Garden, Pasadena |
2009 | Palo Alto, California | Stanford University campus | two lemon trees [11] | ||
Tokyo [8] | |||||
2010 | New York City [4] | MoMA | |||
Oberlin, Ohio [8] | Oberlin College | ||||
2012 | New York City | Occupy Wall Street (Zuccotti Park) | Wish Tree for Zuccotti Park | Project altered to distribution of 10,000 postcards after fall 2011 police raid of park [12] | |
Dublin | Wish Tree for Ireland [13] | ||||
London | Serpentine Galleries | Wish Tree for London | |||
2012-13 | Brooklyn, New York [14] | Brooklyn Museum | |||
2013 | St. Louis [15] | Saint Louis Art Museum | |||
Sydney, Australia | Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney | Wish Tree for Sydney [16] | six eucalyptus [17] | ||
2014 | Orlando [18] and Tampa, Florida [19] | Hard Rock Cafe locations | |||
2016 | Manhattan Beach, California | Manhattan Beach Art Center | Wish Tree for Manhattan Beach | unknown | Temporary installation |
Buenos Aires, Argentina | MALBA | Part of Yoko Ono retrospective | |||
2018 | New York City | Performa 17 | unknown | Temporarily installed at festival headquarters [20] | |
2019 | Bad Homburg vor der Höhe | Blickachsen | Wish Trees for Bad Homburg [21] | apple tree [21] |
John Winston Ono Lennon was an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame as the founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles. His work included music, writing, drawings and film. His songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney remains the most successful in history.
Yoko Ono is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking.
Strawberry Fields is a 2.5-acre landscaped section in New York City's Central Park, designed by the landscape architect Bruce Kelly, that is dedicated to the memory of former Beatles member John Lennon. It is named after the Beatles' song "Strawberry Fields Forever", written by Lennon. The song itself is named for the former Strawberry Field children's home in Liverpool, England, located near Lennon's childhood home.
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft and is part of the Smithsonian Institution. It was conceived as the United States' museum of contemporary and modern art and currently focuses its collection-building and exhibition-planning mainly on the post–World War II period, with particular emphasis on art made during the last 50 years.
Wedding Album is the third and final in a succession of three experimental albums by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. It followed Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins and Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions. In Britain, the album was released credited by "John and Yoko", without last names mentioned. In the United States, it was released credited by "John Ono Lennon & Yoko Ono Lennon."
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The bed-ins for peace were two week-long nonviolent protests against wars, intended as experimental tests of new ways to promote peace. As the Vietnam War raged in 1969, artist Yoko Ono and her husband John Lennon held one protest at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam and one at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal. The idea is derived from a "sit-in", in which a group of protesters remain seated in front of or within an establishment until they are evicted, arrested, or their requests are met.
Fly is the second album by Yoko Ono, released in 1971. A double album, it was co-produced by Ono and John Lennon. It peaked at No. 199 on the US charts.
The Peace Tower is a clock tower of the Canadian Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Canada, built to commemorate the end of World War I.
Imagine: John Lennon is a 1988 documentary film about English musician John Lennon. It was released on 7 October 1988, two days before Lennon's 48th birthday.
The Imagine Peace Tower is a memorial to John Lennon from his widow, Yoko Ono, located on Viðey Island in Kollafjörður Bay near Reykjavík, Iceland. Installed in 2007, it consists of a tall tower of light, projected from a white stone monument that has the words "Imagine Peace" carved into it in 24 languages. These words, and the name of the tower, are a reference to Lennon's campaign for peace, and his 1971 song "Imagine".
Viðey is the largest island of the Kollafjörður Bay in Iceland, near the capital of Reykjavík.
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Grapefruit is one of the monuments of conceptual art of the early 1960s. She has a lyrical, poetic dimension that sets her apart from the other conceptual artists. Her approach to art was only made acceptable when [people] like Kosuth and Weiner came in and did virtually the same thing as Yoko, but made them respectable and collectible.
"Imagine" is a song by the English rock musician John Lennon from his 1971 album of the same name. The best-selling single of his solo career, the lyrics encourage listeners to imagine a world of peace, without materialism, without borders separating nations and without religion. Shortly before his death, Lennon said that much of the song's lyrics and content came from his wife, Yoko Ono, and in 2017 she received cowriting credit.
Wish Tree for Washington, DC is a public art work by Yoko Ono.
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