Yoko Ono: 'Cut Piece' (Art Drop #14)

60 years after its premiere, what are we to make of this "strange public violation that everyone was cool with?"

Yoko Ono, Cut Piece (still), 1964. 16 mm black and white film, sound. 9:10 minutes. Performed by the artist, Carnegie Recital Hall, New York, 1965.

In 1964, thirty-one-year-old Yoko Ono premiered a pioneering work of performance art, which she called Cut Piece, at the Yamaichi Concert Hall in Kyoto, Japan. The exhibit began with Ono appearing onstage we…