London, New York, and now Moscow are the destinations of Yoko Ono’s art installation called "Odyssey of a Cockroach". The Russian capital welcomed the exhibition as part of the city’s Second Contemporary Art Biennale.
Ms Ono has already been in Moscow in the 1980s, but this visit, she says, is somewhat different.
“Moscow is one of the cities that I love in the world. And this is the first time I was able to come here bringing my work and so it’s very special for me,” she says.
The show's billboard-size colour photographs and large -scale sculptures are arranged to present modern urban life seen through the eyes of a cockroach. During the press conference Yoko Ono explained how she came up with an idea.
“When I create something – it is the concept that I create. In New York I was given a smaller room and I created a chaotic collage of many different edges. And in London I was given many levels - one whole building. So I created the thing in vertical experience. Here I was given a very large room and I created corridors of life. That’s something I was not able to do before. But the cockroach should know about it - that all of us humans beings are walking through a corridor that was made by our leaders,” Yoko Ono said.
She also said it is humans who limit themselves into the corridors that mirror world history in a succession of darkness, injustice, violence, war and peace.
“I agree with Yoko – this is the best version compared with both London and New York. I think mainly because it’s an interesting space. And secondly we could discuss from the beginning what could be done to bring in more interesting material, which might be associated with Russia, Russian history, Second world war,” says Joseph Bakstein, Moscow Biennale festival curator.
And Ms Ono did make sure that there was something local on display. The Russian Army helmets from the times of World War II contributed to her and John Lennon’s idea of imagining the world a better place to live in. With the exhibition having one month to run, Yoko Ono hopes more Russians would think of peace with the help of her installations.
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