Installation view of “Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind,” at MCA Chicago. (Photo: Robert Chase Heishman)
After its record-breaking run at the Tate Modern in London, Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind has finally landed at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) Chicago, the exclusive U.S. venue for the artist’s most comprehensive solo exhibition to date. Gathering more than 200 works from her decades-long career, Music of the Mind is not just a tour de force, but one of the most ambitious glimpses into Ono’s multidisciplinary practice.
If nothing else, the exhibition makes one fact abundantly clear: Ono is nearly impossible to categorize. Since the mid-1950s, she has experimented with everything from instruction-based sculptures and conceptual films to Fluxus works and avant-garde music. Her output across the past seven decades has been as expansive as it has been innovative, ranging from her landmark 1964 Cut Piece performance to her War Is Over! campaign created with her late husband, John Lennon.
“Yoko Ono is a wildly influential and significant figure in performance, conceptualism, music, and activism,” Jamillah James, senior curator at MCA Chicago, said. “She has inspired generations of audiences to think differently about the everyday and seeing art.”
As is to be expected for a retrospective, Music of the Mind explores many of Ono’s most iconic projects from the 20th century, including Grapefruit, an experimental book from 1964 full of instructions for readers to enact (or not); her banned Film No. 4 from 1966–1967, depicting flashing images of people’s butts; and Glass Hammer, a sculpture that turned the traditional purpose of a hammer on its head. But the exhibition pays an equal amount of attention to her more recent works as well, many of which are participatory in nature. Though created in the 1960s, Ono’s Add Color (Refugee Boat), for example, has made several appearances at exhibitions in the past few years, encouraging guests to scrawl messages in blue pen across a white boat and surrounding white walls. Over time, what first appears to be a blank canvas transforms into a monumental blue field, reminiscent of the oceans that immigrants and refugees may have to cross in order to arrive at safety.
Helmets (Pieces of Sky) is yet another invitation to enact peace and activism through participation. The installation features several helmets that belonged to German troops during World War II, each inverted and dangling from the ceiling. Found inside the helmets are blue puzzle pieces printed with images of the sky. Viewers are welcome to take a piece home with them, prompting reflection upon the violence of war and the demands of peace that must accompany it. White Chess Set, on the other hand, asks visitors to play a game of chess, a task that is made far more difficult given that all the pieces are white.
“The exhibition will really open a lot of eyes, so people will realize how much Yoko Ono has done for the arts,” Tatsu Aoki, a Chicago-based musician who has collaborated with Ono, told Chicago Magazine. “I felt the same way about the David Bowie exhibition the MCA had [in 2014]: People didn’t know that David Bowie was also a designer, a painter—so much besides pop music. I think Music of the Mind will awaken people like that.”
Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind is currently on view at MCA Chicago through February 22, 2026.
Now on view at MCA Chicago, Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind offers a thrilling glimpse into the artist’s multidisciplinary practice.
“Add Color (Refugee Boat),” 1960/2016/2024, as seen in “Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind” at the Tate Modern, London, 2024. (Photo: Oliver Cowling)
“Helmets (Pieces of Sky),” 2001. Installation view of “Yoko Ono: Between the Sky and My Head,” Baltic Center for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, U.K., 2008. (Photo: Baltic Center for Contemporary Art)
“Wish Tree for Stockholm,” 1996/2012. Installation view of “Yoko Ono: Grapefruit,” at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, 2012. (Photo: Åsa Lund)
“SKY TV,” 1966. (Photo: Cathy Carver)
Yoko Ono with “Glass Hammer,” 1967. (Photo: Clay Perry)
“Cut Piece,” 1964. Performance view, “New Works by Yoko Ono,” Carnegie Recital Hall, New York, NY, 1965. (Photo: Minoru Niizuma)
Gathering more than 200 works across Ono’s decades-long career, Music of the Mind will be on view through February 2026.
“Secret Piece,” 1953, from typescripts for “Grapefruit,” 1963–64.
“FLY” (still), 1970–71. 16 mm film (color, mono sound).
Installation view of “Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind,” at MCA Chicago. (Photo: Eugene Kim / My Modern Met)
“Apple,” 1966. Installation view from “Yoko Ono: One Woman Show,” at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 2015. (Photo: Thomas Griesel)
Yoko Ono with “Half-A-Room,” 1967. (Photo: Clay Perry)