Family Album

This exhibition brought to a close the year-long cycle that the Stiftung Starke had dedicated to the Fluxus artist. “Family Album” was in essence two exhibitions that combined harmoniously in a symbiosis. On the one hand, bronze objects made in 1993, the year of the exhibition, were shown; on the other, the exhibition presented pictures that Yoko Ono had already conceived in 1961. These pictures in particular demonstrate the artist’s visionary quality. Conceived and exhibited in 1961, they were conceptually constructed and impressed with their formal minimalism. The pictures exhibited at that time were lost and have never resurfaced. Jon Hendricks, Yoko Ono’s curator and also curator of the well-known Silverman Collection of Fluxus art in New York, discovered slides of the original works and was able to persuade the artist to make the pictures once more, resulting in original reproductions developed both times in the same spirit. Behind this lies an important attitude of Fluxus art: it is not the work that is really important but the idea behind it. The bronze objects, which the artist calls “Blood Objects”, address domestic violence. Yoko Ono wants to draw attention to the fact that violence begins within the family and is not only physical but often also psychological. Excessive vanity, abortion, authoritarian upbringing, pedantry and mistrust are just a few of the triggers.

Numerous sponsors made possible the transport, the printing of the catalogue and posters, and the posting of the posters across the city.

The greatest success to date of the sixty-year-old avant-garde artist was her participation in 1993 in the Venice Biennale, in the special show “Passaggio a Oriente”, with a widely noted installation. Jörg Starke represented the foundation in Venice at his own expense, established press contacts and coordinated the daily schedule.