Grapefruit: Promotional material (4 items).
Yoko Ono’s Copies
Ono, Yoko. Grapefruit: Promotional Material. Ca. late1963.
Three offset printed pieces, various sizes, likely printed by George Maciunas as promotional announcements for Grapefruit – all utilizing Yoko Ono’s handwriting. Enclosed in unfranked autograph envelope, addressed to Ono in Japan.
The smallest item (“Instructions for poem No. 86 / Fly”) was originally created as part of the birth announcement for her daughter Kyoko in 1963; that version was longer, and included a photo of the baby. The handwritten version here is the only rendering of this instruction in the artist’s hand. The poem was included in Grapefruit (under the title ”Fly Piece,” dated “1963 summer”) set in type, rather than in Ono’s hand. The birth announcement was included in a 2007 exhibition at the Getty Center, “Art, Anti-Art, Non-Art: Experimentations in the Public Sphere in Postwar Japan, 1950-1970.”
The second element is listed by at least two sources as being part of the birth announcement, though it refers to the book. According to the Walker Art Center, Ono mailed an announcement for the publication of Grapefruit with Kyoko’s birth announcement to an Ernest Y. Sutan in early 1964 (both offset lithographs on paper); whether the publication announcement is the small element or the large sheet is unknown, as neither images nor sizes were included in the description. Our set may instead be proof version of elements for that mailing, quite possibly from late 1963, as they were enclosed in an envelope addressed to Ono in Japan. That it was printed by Maciunas is suggested by the typography of the copyright notice, which utilizes his distinctive typeface and format. He had apparently intended to publish Grapefruit himself – which might explain his involvement in its early marketing, including an advertisement using “Instructions for Poem No. 86 (Fly)” in Fluxus Newspaper No. 2 – but became too busy with other Fluxus projects, so Ono eventually published the collection herself in Japan in early summer 1964.
Legitimately scarce.
(#4656486)
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