Product reviews

Grapefruit: a book of instructions

First published in Japan in 1964, subsequently republished in a slightly different version in Britain and the US in 1970, and reprinted in 2000, Yoko Ono's book of art instruction pieces, GRAPEFRUIT, is an anthology of minimalist delights. With directions that are by turns charming, absurd, and darkly humorous, Ono invites us to dismantle the barriers between our conscious and unconscious minds, our inner lives and the outside world, and, most importantly, each other. In instructions like "Drill a hole in the sky. Cut out a paper the same size as the hole. Burn the paper. The sky should be pure blue," Ono bridges the gap between the stillness of a Zen garden and the heavens briefly glimpsed between buildings from a crowded street. Much of GRAPEFRUIT can also be interpreted as a restatement of the Sarah Lawrence-educated artist's Japanese roots after over a decade spent in the US; directions to "wait until a chair falls," or to "count the wrinkles on each other's stomachs," blend Surrealism with ineffable stillness. The resulting collection filters the mysterious visions of Magritte through the sensibilities of a remarkable contemporary artist weaving the mundane realities of the world into simple works of wonder.