The Broad museum in Los Angeles has announced a groundbreaking exhibition featuring legendary artist, musician, and activist Yoko Ono. Titled "Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind," this major retrospective will mark Ono's first solo museum exhibition in Southern California and is scheduled to open in spring 2026. The comprehensive show, organized in collaboration with Tate Modern in London, will explore Ono's remarkable seven-decade impact on contemporary culture and art.
The exhibition will run from May 23 through October 11, 2026, featuring works that invite direct visitor engagement and transform everyday actions into powerful expressions of peace and connection. A significant highlight will be the installation of "Wish Trees for Los Angeles" on the East West Bank Plaza, where The Broad's olive trees will host this interactive piece originally presented in Santa Monica in 1996. The installation encourages public participation by allowing visitors to contribute their personal wishes, embodying themes of hope and community spirit that have defined Ono's work throughout her career.
"For more than seven decades, Yoko Ono has expanded the possibilities of art as a force for connection and change," said Joanne Heyler, Founding Director and President of The Broad. "Poetic and bold, her emphasis on community and activism is especially timely, reminding us that imagination binds us together and can be a powerful source of collective strength."
Born in Tokyo in 1933, Ono relocated to New York City in 1956, where she quickly became an integral part of the city's emerging experimental art community. She played a crucial role in the early development of conceptual art and was closely involved in the formation of Fluxus, the global avant-garde collective that included renowned figures such as George Maciunas, La Monte Young, and John Cage. Her formative experiences as a young girl fleeing the horrors of World War II in the Japanese countryside deeply influenced her artistic principles, where she learned to rely on imagination for nourishment and to maintain hope during difficult times.
From the beginning of her career, Ono believed that artistic production was not confined to studios, galleries, or museums, but could exist in the minds, bodies, and hearts of everyone. "Since the 1950s, Yoko Ono has worked across genres and mediums from music and performance to visual art, contending with a complex spectrum of human emotion," explained Sarah Loyer, Curator and Exhibitions Manager at The Broad. "Her foundational contributions to 1960s conceptualism and her lifelong commitment to participation have redefined what art can be and do."
The exhibition will showcase materials from Ono's international campaigns for peace and displays of anti-war activism, including significant works such as "Acorn Event" (1968) and "Bed Peace" (1969), projects created in collaboration with her late husband, John Lennon. In 1968, Ono and Lennon planted two acorns as a living sculpture for the Exhibition of British Sculpture at Coventry Cathedral in England, later sending acorns to world leaders to plant in their gardens as symbols of world peace. The following year, the couple staged their famous bed-in events in Amsterdam and Montreal, leveraging media attention to speak out against the Vietnam War.
Film and video will feature prominently throughout the exhibition, including footage of Ono's most famous participatory performance work, "Cut Piece," first performed at Yamaichi Hall in Kyoto in 1964. In this groundbreaking piece, the audience was invited to cut away pieces of her clothing while she sat silently onstage. The exhibition will also display "FILM NO. 1 (MATCH) / Fluxfilm No. 14" (1966), which captures the striking of a match in slow motion, and "FILM NO. 4 (BOTTOMS)" (1967), a work once banned by the British Board of Film Censors. Collaborative video works with Lennon, including "FLY" (1970-71) and "Freedom" (1970), which address women's liberation, will also be featured.
Contemporary installations from the 2000s will invite audiences to envision new horizons through direct participation. "Helmets (Pieces of Sky)" (2001) invites guests to take puzzle pieces from a series of overturned World War II-era German soldier helmets, suggesting that the pieces may come together to form a complete sky and that everyone is part of a shared whole. In Ono's words: "Take a piece of sky. Know that we are all part of each other."
Another powerful installation, "My Mommy is Beautiful" (2004), allows visitors to write thoughts about or pin photographs of their mothers. This work will accumulate personal stories throughout the exhibition's run, becoming a universal testimonial to the complexity of relationships with mothers and highlighting collective humanity as a central theme in Ono's work.
The exhibition "Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind" is organized by Tate Modern, London, in collaboration with The Broad, Los Angeles. The show is curated by Juliet Bingham, Curator of International Art at Tate Modern, with The Broad presentation curated by Sarah Loyer, Curator and Exhibitions Manager. This comprehensive retrospective promises to offer visitors a transformative experience that celebrates Ono's enduring influence on art, music, and social activism while emphasizing her belief in art's power to create positive change in the world.
