MaMA 

The artworks in YES reflect a new mentality which is characterized by an inversed distrust, without being naive. Childish, without being silly. Free and liberating. YES explores the breadth of a generation that nourishes itself with humour, naivety, poetry and play. In a hectic,
product-oriented and media-controlled society, such an agile ability to put things into perspective is essential, a true elixir of life that keeps us alert: Yes! Live! Do!

On the 24th August 1968, John Lennon and Yoko Ono gave their first tv interview together on the London Weekend Television show “Frost on Saturday”, The programme was broadcasted live between 6:45 and 7:30 pm.

John: She was having a show at this gallery and I knew the fellow that ran it so it wasn’t –it’s a bit embarrassing being a Beatle anyway, going into a shop, never mind going to a gallery, because they either all leap on you thinking “he’s another mug, like a Texan, he’ll buy anything” and I had a bit of a hang up about art too, having been to art school, and disliked the attitude of the so called artists, you know… so anyway, I finally got to this show, and she had all these things on like hammer / nail things and that clock there you listen to with a stethoscope, all the things. And at first I reacted like a mug you know, like the ones that were saying “We don’t get a badge” you know, so I thought “Ha ha – you don’t fool me with all this junk” you know, so then there was this ladder and a thing on the ceiling, so I climbed the ladder and on the ceiling it said ‘Yes’, you see, so I thought, I agreed then, it’s ok – you know, I mean it’s like those jokes “While you’re looking up here you’re dribbling down your trousers”

I mean, it’s all sort of connected, people get a buzz out of that in the toilet, but if you put it on in a room, it upsets them a bit, because they’ve got preconceived ideas about where those messages should be. But it said ‘Yes’. And if it had said ‘No’ I would have carried on with my preconceived ideas about art and artists, that they’re all sort of “Yeah yeah, sure, sure”. But it said ‘Yes’ and that was enough and then she came up and said – she didn’t know who I was – and [she] was saying “Do you like to hammer a nail in? it’s five shillings”,
So I said, I didn’t have any money either, so I said “I’ll hammer an imaginary nail in and give you an imaginary five shillings” Which she agreed with and she accepted that on the same basis that I accepted her work, you know, and (in camp voice) that was how we met actually.