SHE is the world’s most famous unknown artist – everyone knows her name, but no one knows what she does, John Lennon once said of the perceived disregard for his wife Yoko Ono, who turns 91 on Sunday (Feb 18).

From Thursday, Ono’s impact on conceptual art will be on display in a retrospective exhibition at the Tate Modern in London.

The Music of the Mind show, which runs until Sep 1, explores the multidisciplinary works of a woman more famed for being the murdered Beatle’s wife than a conceptual art icon.

“This exhibition is a true celebration of Yoko as an artist,” said Andrew de Brun, one of the exhibition’s curators.

“Indeed, John Lennon was a very important collaborator for her, but we are very happy to be able to showcase her art.”

Two hundred works

Spanning seven decades, the exhibition presents a detailed exploration of Ono’s artistic legacy through 200 pieces, including installations, objects, videos, photographs, sculptures and documents detailing her performances and musical compositions.

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“We recognise the importance of Yoko Ono in contemporary art and culture,” said de Brun of the retrospective, which the curators say is the most extensive ever done in Britain about Ono.

“By displaying some of her works, we help to showcase the significant place she occupies,” the curator added. “We are pleased to present her work to new generations of visitors… showing her activism, her campaigns for peace.”

Since her initial exhibitions in New York during the 1950s, Ono has been a proponent of conceptualism – an art movement that posits the concept or idea behind an artwork is more important than the physical piece.

The exhibition examines some of the artist’s most controversial works or performances, such as Cut Piece, a work she first presented in Japan and then in 1965 at Carnegie Recital Hall in New York.

On stage, Ono appeared in a black dress and left scissors beside her, allowing the audience to cut off her clothing in an exhibit aimed at drawing attention to the violence society inflicts on women.

The exhibition appears as a vindication of the artist’s epic journey, after decades of being blamed by some for the breakup of The Beatles in 1970.

Meeting John Lennon

Ono’s conceptual art installations at London’s Indica Gallery in 1967 captivated Lennon.

On that occasion, a work called Ceiling Painting invited visitors to climb a ladder and view through a magnifying glass the word “yes” that appeared on the ceiling.

Lennon climbed the ladder and was amazed by the work, which is now being exhibited in London.

“When the Hammer A Nail painting was exhibited at Indica Gallery, a person came to me and asked if it was alright to hammer a nail in the painting,” Ono recalled in her text Some Notes on the Lisson Gallery Show.

“I said it was alright if he pays five shillings. Instead of paying five shillings, he asked if it was alright for him to hammer an imaginary nail in. That was John Lennon.”

Ono and Lennon married in 1969 and remained together until his murder in New York in 1980 at the age of 40.

In their 13 years together, the couple released six albums and created experimental music recordings, short films, performances and installations.

With Lennon, the Tokyo-born artist achieved acclaim in music, a topic that the London exhibition also explores.

The couple’s 1980 release Double Fantasy, recorded before Lennon’s death, won the Grammy Award for album of the year.

“When I hear music, my body just starts to move,” Ono said in an interview in 2013. “That’s just me. That’s just my body. And I was like that as a child, too.” AFP