grapefruit book

Grapefruit Book, Yoko Ono

On 4 July 1964 in Tokyo, Yoko Ono self-published her masterpiece, Grapefruit, in a limited edition. For at least a decade she had been creating event scores: instructions for performance pieces in the genres of poetry, painting, music, event and object making (or object alteration or object destruction). The scores were typed on ordinary white postcards and dated – and sometimes annotated – by Ono in blue ink.  Much has been written about the wide-ranging influence of these event scores on Fluxus, conceptual, and performance art. A quick glance at the list of dedicatees for the various pieces gives a good idea of the early audience for these events: John Cage, David Tudor, La Monte Young, Nam June Paik, Morton Feldman, Peggy Guggenheim, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, George Brecht, Ray Johnson, Isamu Noguchi, Diane Wikoski, as well as George Maciunas, who was given these cards by Ono in 1964. 

Notes: Text found in Sotheby's, book was spotted in MOMA's John Cage exhibition, book photo found in Wikipedia and cloudpiece image found in IDEA: a collection of). Partial PDF via MONOSKOP