In New York, Artist Yoko Ono
Presents 2015 Courage Awards
By Edward M. Gómez
www.edwardmgomez.com
February 23, 2015
NEW YORK — There was another awards ceremony in theUnited States last night…
At a private dinner at The Modern, a restaurant in theMuseum of Modern Art’s main building in Manhattan,
the artist Yoko Ono Lennon presented the 2015 CourageAwards for the Arts. First awarded in 2009, Ono’s prize isamong the less familiar expressions of philanthropy andcultural activism for which this internationally recognizedmultimedia artist, performer and peace activist is known.

Above: Artist Yoko Ono (right) speaking about thecareer of the 2015 Courage Awards for the Arts
honoree Jeffrey Deitch (seated) in New York on Sunday
evening, Feb. 22. Below: Ono with Ornette Coleman,
the legendary jazz saxophonist, composer and bandleader, who is another one of this year’s award
recipients. Photos by E.M.G.

Still, as Ono has said, it is an awards program whose
mission and character resonate deeply with the artist
herself. That’s because, as she has observed, over thedecades of a long, multifaceted career she has learnedfirsthand about struggling, perseverance and striving toremain true to one’s creative vision, often in the face ofharsh criticism, misunderstanding or rejection.
With such themes in mind, over the years Ono’s CourageAwards have acknowledged the achievements and thestick-to-itiveness of art-makers, music-makers, creative
visionaries and champions of free expression. Past
recipients of the awards have included, among others,
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange; the feminist artist,writer and activist, Kate Millett; composer-performer
Meredith Monk; the Guerrilla Girls; composer-performers
La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela; the Austrian artist
Valie Export; the London-based artist Gustav Metzger,
who is most often associated with “auto-destructive” art;
and the 19th-century writer Émile Zola. (PEN American
Center, the organization that supports writers andfreedom of expression, picked up Zola’s 2010 award for
him in that long-deceased author’s name.)
This year’s Courage Award recipients included Ornette
Coleman, the pioneering jazz saxophonist andcomposer; Jeffrey Deitch, the New York art dealer andformer director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los
Angeles; Toshi Ichiyanagi, the Japanese composer (who2was Ono’s first husband); and Jonas Mekas, the avant-garde filmmaker and aco-founder of New York’s Anthology Film Archives.
Speaking to a gathering that included performance artist Laurie Anderson,
artist Jeff Koons, New York art dealer Andrea Rosen, composer and WNYC-FM
radio-program host David Garland (“Spinning on Air”), and various museum
curators and art-world figures, Ono praised this year’s Courage Award winners
for their creativity and risk-taking spirit, despite the criticism most of them had
encountered in the past.
“You look younger than ever before!” Ono told Coleman, with whose ensemble,in 1968, she recorded free-form compositions with wildly inventive vocals, inwhich the saxophonist’s band mimicked her gasping, yelping, unpredictably
emotive vocal acrobatics. (A sample of that collaboration can be found on Ono’s
first record album, Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, which was issued on Apple Records in December 1970.)
Alluding to his return to New York after his recent, controversial stint as MOCA’s

Left: The Japanese composer Toshi
Ichiyanagi, a 2015 Courage Awards forthe Arts honoree, sent his acceptancespeech from Tokyo via pre-recorded
video clip. The artist Yoko Ono’s firsthusband, Ichiyanagi is known for his
experimental works, which havefeatured a wide range of instrument
configurations. Photo by E.M.G.

director in Los Angeles, Ono greeted Deitch with a hearty “Welcome back!” andnoted, “We need your risk-taking. We need your vision.” She referred to Deitch as
one of the most original dealers in the art world, whose approaches to selecting
new works to show and to presenting art have dramatically affected — sometime controversially — conventional ways in which contemporary art has beenviewed.
In accepting his award, Deitch recalled presenting part of Ono’s “En Trance/Ex It” exhibition at his former New York gallery space in 1988, at which time heshowed the artist’s one hundred wooden coffins, out of which fruit trees grewin the open spaces where the faces of deceased human bodies normally arevisible. That show, Deitch said, “was the most moving exhibition I everpresented” and one that took some hits from unappreciative critics. “It showed
me what Yoko had been up against all those years,” Deitch observed.

3

Far left: Ornette Coleman, oneof this year’s Courage Awards
for the Arts honorees, andthe performance artist Laurie
Anderson, who received theaward last year. Left: The art
dealer and former museum
director Jeffrey Deitch, Ono
and, at the podium, the artist
Jeff Koons, who spoke about
his longtime working
relationship with Deitch.
Photos by E.M.G.

The Japan-based composer Ichiyanagi, who, like Ono, is now 82 years old, could notattend last night’s awards event but he sent a videotaped thank-you message from his
home. Garland described Ichiyanagi’s music, which has combined Western and Eastern
instrumentation or brought together a traditional orchestra with a rock band as having
consistently “offered listeners new experiences.”
Ono said, “Toshi, your energy goes way back to when you were at school, a student atJulliard. I was so viciously attacked in the press in Japan in 1962, and you stood up forme. You created a revolution in Japanese music, always following your creative instinct.
I remember everything. Thank you for being you.”
To the Lithuanian-born Mekas, Ono said, “Your courage was born with you from thebeginning; it served you well when you were a teenager, coming to America. You stoodfirm —single-handedly —for a different kind of film, supporting the most unpopular
filmmakers and opening the eyes of the world.” Mekas, who came to the U.S. in 1949and purchased his first Bolex camera two weeks after arriving in New York, replied, “Iwas just walking blindly through life.” In fact, the film-preserving and -presenting
institution he helped established has long provided a showcase for experimental films
that would almost never find backers in the movie industry’s commercial mainstream.
Acknowledging that her Courage Awards have existed somewhat off the mainstream
media’s and even the specialized art media’s radar screens, Ono noted that “a fantasticspirit” has surrounded this awards program since into inception. About the personal
histories of prospective winners and the decision-making process leading up to her
choices of whom to honor each year, Ono noted enigmatically, “I’m actually a very
nervous person, and there are so many beautiful stories I could tell you.” She said nomore, leaving her guests to ponder the achievements and the significance of therecipients she had chosen for this year’s awards — and exactly what it means to becourageous in the making and presenting of one’s art. •