Yoko Ono Biography Reaches for Greatness, But Slips Short of Objectivity

Biographies can be a tricky, difficult genre to pull off. The best are written from a distance and focus on a critical assessment of their subject. They’re not afraid to hold the person at the center of the story accountable for indiscretions in either personal or professional life choices. The key to a successful biography has always been objectivity, distance, and a willingness to take a stand. This is especially true when it comes to divisive artists whose legacies are rich but still questionable. In the matter of Yoko Ono, the multi-hyphenate visual/recording artist, poet, sculptor, pioneering performance artist, widow of Beatle John Lennon, any biographer who undertakes a manageable account of the nonagenarian's life and times has to make a choice. Should he cover the prolific output, the colorful life, or both?

Ono turned 93 in February, and has been retired for approximately the past 10 years. She’s living on a farm in upstate New York. She’s given over the family empire to her fifty year old son Sean Lennon, who oversees boxed set releases of work by his father (Mind Games) and both parents together (Sometime In New York City.) Early in the prologue of Yoko Ono: A Biography, Sheff discloses his access to the world of John and Yoko: It was the fall of 1980. They had been recording their comeback album, Double Fantasy, a release that alternated tracks as a sort of dialogue between each other. Sheff spent nearly three weeks with them that September, wrote the feature for Playboy, and was devastated like most of the world at Lennon’s December 8, 1980 murder:

“In the years that followed,” Sheff writes, “we became good friends and I got close to Sean.”

Sheff seemed to have gotten himself permanently installed in Yoko’s inner circle and traveled with her to many different places: USSR, Japan, London, Los Angeles.

“I was with her during some of the hardest years of her life, including when she was betrayed by people she trusted and when her life was threatened.”

To his credit, Sheff struggles with the access issue early in this book. “Can a journalist tell the truth about a friend? I wasn’t interested in presenting a whitewashed version of Yoko’s story- a friend’s filtered idealization.”

Sheff’s full disclosure here is admirable, and the responsible approach to take as a journalist, but it’s not a guarantee that he’s successful in his mission. At its best, this is a gripping story about a Japanese woman born in 1933 into a world of privilege. She wanted for nothing when it came to material goods but her family life was emotionally cold. She’s 12 years old in March 1945 when Tokyo was bombarded with bombs. Before Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She graduated from the prestigious Gakushuin University in 1952, at the age of 19, and found a fresh life as a graduate student at Sarah Lawrence in New York City.

Ono’s early art pieces are fascinating. Cut Piece had her perched on stage, inviting audience members to come up and cut pieces of her clothing. At its Kyoto debut in 1964, Sheff cites commentary from a fellow female artist active at that time:

“It was an extremely dangerous piece…because there was no sense of feminine presence or barriers…vile things were in the air…she was challenging those very dark impulses in this vulnerable position.”

Ono’s book Grapefruit (1961) was a collection of Koan-like instructions that inspired Lennon’s

“Imagine” (which in turn allowed her to finally get co-writing credit in 2020.) “Pea Piece” and "Kitchen Piece” were also instructional, perhaps even whimsical, in their willingness to allow the audience to imagine themselves part of the artistic process. This is never so apparent as in :Water Piece,” (1964), which asks the viewer to steal a moon on the water until there is no longer a moon. Sheff notes:

“If you watch people contemplate the instructions…you’ll see how it accomplishes Yoko’s goal…It…makes them smile…”

This book includes over 30 pages of notes that demonstrate Sheff’s comprehensive reporting, but its lack of artistic chronology is a glaring mistake. Don't expect to see a chronology of Ono’s work after the Notes and before the Index. Don’t expect to see more than the provided 16 pages of black and white photos. If Sheff’s goal was to legitimize Ono as the creator of :”one of the twenty-five most influential works of American protest art since World War II,” as a 2020 New York Times piece referred to “Cut Piece,” he comes up lacking.

George Maciunas, one of John Cage’s students and in Ono’s crowd in the early 1960s, coined the term “Fluxus” to describe the art movement brewing amongst the group. Sheff devotes a few pages to it, leaving the reader wanting more. The same goes for an explanation of her particularly distinct vocalization, which she claims had roots in kabuki and noh theater. These roots probably should have been developed deeper for a clearer understanding of her work.

Yoko Ono is separated into distinct, logical sections. Part One, “Above Us Only Sky,” (1933-1966), is as rich and dramatic as you might expect. It’s followed by “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” (1966-1980), which is a strong but well-trodden path. There’s the drama of John and Yoko’s heroin addiction, rescuing (and losing) Yoko’s kidnapped daughter Kyoko, John’s 18 month “lost weekend,” and the final five years of his life spent bonding with his son Sean. Part Three, “Yoko Only,” (1980-2024) starts with the brutal murder of John and features all sorts of drama: life threats, espionage, a slow recovery and a focus on legacy, Ono’s musical reputation is revived when she becomes in inexplicable dance music queen in her eighties. Her humor and activism was as strong as ever in a November 2016 tweet:

“‘ Dear Friends. I would like to share this message with you as my response to @realDonaldTrump. Love, Yoko.’ It was a nineteen-second audio clip of her screaming.”

By the end of Yoko Ono: A Biography the reader gets a clear sense of an artist who did indeed pave the way for many who followed in at least half a dozen mediums. She was a classical pianist, an avant-garde singer, a woman who could come off as nostalgically romantic and dangerously unnerved. She faced misogyny, unapologetic Nipponophobia in the 1950s and '60s, and an anger that still resonates today. While much of her work can now seem horribly naive and child-like, she stated true to her essence of Ocean Child and hopeful imagination. David Sheff has written a comprehensive biography that suffers from straddling the line between memoir and critical study. A little more of the latter would have made this good biography great.