''Grapefruit'' is an

artist's book Artists' books (or book arts or book objects) are works of art that utilize the form of the book. They are often published in small editions, though they are sometimes produced as one-of-a-kind objects. Overview Artists' books have employed a ...

written by

Yoko Ono Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up i ...

, originally published in 1964. It has become famous as an early example of

conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called ins ...

, containing a series of " event scores" that replace the physical work of art – the traditional stock-in-trade of artists – with instructions that an individual may, or may not, wish to enact.

Origins of the event score

Event scores were developed by a number of artists attending

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading f ...

's experimental music composition classes at the

New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSS ...

in New York. Whilst Ono did not attend these informal lessons, her husband at the time, Ichiyanagi Toshi (an experimental musician), did and Toshi and Ono became regulars of Cage's circle of friends by 1959. Other members of this group included

David Tudor David Eugene Tudor (January 20, 1926 – August 13, 1996) was an American pianist and composer of experimental music. Life and career Tudor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied piano with Irma Wolpe and composition with Stefan W ...

, Morton Feldman,

Richard Maxfield Richard Vance Maxfield (February 2, 1927 – June 27, 1969) was a composer of instrumental, electro-acoustic, and electronic music. Born in Seattle, Maxfield studied at Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley (with Roger Sessions ...

and

Merce Cunningham Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other discipl ...

. Invention of the event score is usually credited to

George Brecht George Brecht (August 27, 1926 – December 5, 2008), born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer, as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson ...

, but

La Monte Young La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best k ...

and Yoko Ono are also cited as amongst the first to experiment with the form. Both Cage and Brecht were deeply influenced by "Oriental thinking", and Ono found that her Buddhist-inspired work was, almost accidentally, fêted by the emerging New York

counterculture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. H ...

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretica ...

Origins of the book

Often considered a

Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...

artwork, in fact the work was originally published by Ono's own imprint, Wunternaum Press, in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...

in an edition of 500. After leaving New York in 1962 – where she had exhibited at Maciunas' AG Gallery, amongst others – her then-husband Anthony Cox suggested she collect her scores together.

George Maciunas George Maciunas (; lt, Jurgis Mačiūnas; November 8, 1931 – May 9, 1978) was a Lithuanian American artist, born in Kaunas. A founding member and the central coordinator of Fluxus, an international community of artists, architects, composers ...

, the central personality in Fluxus, had apparently been trying to reach her in Tokyo with the aim of printing a similar book in New York,Yes. Yoko Ono, Harry Abrams 2000, p82 as part of his series of ''Fluxkits'' (see ''

Water Yam ''Dioscorea alata'', also known as purple yam, ube (, ), or greater yam, among many other names, is a species of yam (a tuber). The tubers are usually a vivid violet-purple to bright lavender in color (hence the common name), but some range in ...

''), but his letters had not reached her; she sent some of the scores and a prepublication advertisement to be published in his Fluxus newspaper in February 1964 when contact was finally established.

First edition

The name ''Grapefruit'' was chosen as title because Ono believed the

grapefruit The grapefruit (''Citrus'' × ''paradisi'') is a subtropical citrus tree known for its relatively large, sour to semi-sweet, somewhat bitter fruit. The interior flesh is segmented and varies in color from pale yellow to dark pink. Grapefruit ...

to be a hybrid of an

orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower *Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum * ...

and a

lemon The lemon (''Citrus limon'') is a species of small evergreen trees in the flowering plant family Rutaceae, native to Asia, primarily Northeast India (Assam), Northern Myanmar or China. The tree's ellipsoidal yellow fruit is used for culin ...

, and thus a reflection of herself as "a spiritual hybrid". It also seems likely that it is a playful allusion to Brecht's ''

'', itself a pun on Brecht and Watt's ''Yam Festival'', which, culminating in a series of events and performances in May 1963, had been derived from "May" backwards. The first edition that was published in 1964 in Japan by Wunternaum Press created by Yoko Ono, contains over 150 "instruction works"; virtually all are in English, with about a third translated into Japanese. They are divided into five sections; ''Music'', ''Painting'', ''Event'', ''Poetry'' and ''Object''. The instructions are preceded by dedications to figures including

Nam June Paik Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super h ...

Isamu Noguchi was an American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public artworks, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and severa ...

and

Peggy Guggenheim Marguerite "Peggy" Guggenheim ( ; August 26, 1898 – December 23, 1979) was an American art collector, bohemian and socialite. Born to the wealthy New York City Guggenheim family, she was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim, who went down with ...

, and also includes documentation relating to Ono's recent exhibitions and performances. The work was originally sold for $3.00 before publication, $6.00 after. 1964 Wunternaum Press. Tokyo, Japan (Paperback)

Subsequent editions

The second edition was published in 1970 by

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publi ...

in New York, Peter Owen Ltd in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, and Bärmeier & Nikel in

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...

. As well as an introduction by

John Lennon John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...

("Hi! My name is John Lennon. I'd like you to meet Yoko Ono ..." In the 2000 reissue of Lennon's 1964 book, ''

In His Own Write ''In His Own Write'' is a 1964 nonsense book by English musician John Lennon. His first book, it consists of poems and short stories ranging from eight lines to three pages, as well as illustrations. After Lennon showed journalist Michael Br ...

'', Ono wrote a similar introduction), the work contained 80 more instruction pieces, and included two more sections, ''Film'' and ''Dance''. The book ends with a collection of Ono's writings including ''To The Wesleyan People'', 1966. There were also paperback versions printed by Sphere and Touchstone around the same time, and a reprint by Simon & Schuster in 2000. The sphere edition has a particularly memorable sleeve, conflating the title with Yoko Ono's film ''Bottoms'', (or no. 4), a film composed exclusively of naked bottoms, made in 1966. 1970 Bärmeier & Nikel. Frankfurt am Main, Germany Peter Owen. London, UK Simon & Schuster. New York, USA (Hardcover with dust jacket) POMELO. Ediciones de la Flor. Buenos Aires, Argentina 1971 Sphere Books. London, UK Simon & Schuster. New York, USA (Paperback) TouchStone Book, USA 2000 Simon & Schuster. New York, USA Bakhåll. Sweden 2004 PAMPLEMOUSSE. Textuel. France 2005 GRAPEFRUIT. INSTRUZIONE PER L'ARTE E PER LA VITA. Mondadori. Italy 2006 POMELO. Centro de Creación Experimental. Cuenca, Spain 2015 Museum of Modern Art. New York, USA. (Facsimile of first edition in slip case.)

Planned sequel

''Grapefruit II'' was planned as a sequel. It is mentioned once in ''Grapefruit'' and had a pre-publication price of $5 and a post-release price of $10.Ono, Yoko (1964). ''Grapefruit''. It was planned to be released in 1966 and is currently unreleased. Ono stated that it would contain 150 new pieces not featured in ''Grapefruit'', including her "touch poems". A sequel to ''Grapefruit'' was published in 2013, ''

Acorn The acorn, or oaknut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera '' Quercus'' and '' Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains one seed (occasionally two seeds), enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and b ...

''.

Some of the scores

PIECES FOR ORCHESTRA COUGH PIECE CLOUD PIECE

PAINTING TO EXIST ONLY WHEN IT'S COPIED OR PHOTOGRAPHED

PAINTING TO BE CONSTRUCTED IN YOUR HEAD

SNOW PIECE

TUNAFISH SANDWICH PIECE

PAINTING TO BE STEPPED ON

Sequel: ''Acorn'' (2013)

In July 2013, Ono released ''Grapefruits sequel, called ''

'', another book of "instructional poems". It is (paperback), (ebook).

References

External links

Interview with Ono about Fluxus''Acorn'' (publisher's catalog's page)
Sequel to ''Grapefruit''. 2013. {{Fluxus Works by Yoko Ono 1964 books Artists' books Fluxworks Conceptual art Fluxus