ART: Yoko-Inspired

New York Magazine's The Cut discusses ThreeASFOUR's spring 2010 collection, a collaboration with Yoko Ono, with Grey Gardens director Albert Maysles: "He explained that the show was inspired by the short film Cut Piece, which he directed in the sixties. In that film, Yoko sits on the stage in Carnegie Hall and invites the audience to come up and cut her clothes off. 'That was more interesting, because men were doing the cutting,' Maysles said, 'And you didn't know how far they were going to go. There was more tension.'" ThreeASFOUR restaged the performance with models (clothed in the collection) who walked around the stage and then snipped at the threads holding the silent, immobile center model's cover-up of loosely sewn fabric.

Questions about scopic pleasure and emotional endurance are uppermost in my thoughts these days, and Yoko Ono's original Cut Piece continues to move me with its harrowing resonance for how easily we take from each other, and what we're allowed to keep to ourselves.

YOKO ONO CUT PIECE
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