Imagine at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

Exhibition Highlights John and Yoko’s Ongoing Legacy of Peace

May 11, 2009

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts presents "Imagine," a thoughtful look at the 40th anniversary of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's famous Bed-In for Peace.

All the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is saying is give peace a chance. “Imagine: The Peace Ballad of John and Yoko” highlights the legacy of peace inspired by John Lennon and Yoko Ono while celebrating the milestone 40th anniversary of the couple’s famous 1969 Montreal Bed-In for Peace. The exhibition offers some 150 artifacts that include biographies, photographs, album covers, music memorabilia, peace posters, concert footage, and even a white baby grand piano.

While the theme of peace remains the exhibition’s top priority, a number of Ono’s early performance pieces and newer installations are presented. It’s a very interactive hands-on exhibition, rare for the MFA, that lets visitors play chess, climb ladders, stamp the walls with messages of peace, lie in bed, and photograph as many pictures as they wish. Guests can also submit videos and photos of their museum visit online.

John and Yoko Sell Peace

“Henry Ford knew how to sell cars by advertising,” Lennon once said in the accompanying exhibition text. “I’m selling peace, and Yoko and I are just one big advertising campaign. It may make people laugh, but it may make them think, too.”

The Montreal Bed-In for PeaceAfter their March 20, 1969 wedding, John and Yoko held their first Bed-In for Peace in Amsterdam. They were then supposed to hold their next Bed-In for Peace in New York City, but Lennon was denied entry into the United States. Instead, Lennon and Ono ventured to Montreal and checked in to room 1742 at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel from May 26 to June 2. Singer Petula Clark, sixties counter-culture icon/LSD guru Timothy Leary, and hundreds of reporters stopped by. The room was transformed into a makeshift music studio and was where Lennon recorded the Vietnam War anthem “Give Peace a Chance.”

While the bed on display at the museum is a replica, the signed guitar, drawings by Lennon, and the “Hair Peace” and “Bed Peace” posters are originals. Peace march videos and concert footage show Lennon and Ono’s peace campaign as it was presented throughout the world in a dozen cities including Montreal, Rome, London, New York, and Berlin.

Continuing their legacy of peace, Ono’s more recent installations, created after Lennon’s tragic death in 1980, are also displayed including “Imagine Peace Maps,” where visitors can stamp a variety of world maps with the message “Imagine La Paix.” Guests can also leave goodwill messages on Ono’s “Wish Tree.” It is a sentiment transferred from Ono’s youth when she used to write message on small slips of paper and tie them to tree branches housed in a temple courtyard.

The exhibition also offers an onsite Peace Library, which offers dozens of war- and peace-themed books, which will be donated to area schools after exhibit’s end.

The copyright of the article Imagine at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in Special Art Gallery Exhibits is owned by Steven Howell. Permission to republish Imagine at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.