Yoko Ono has been honored with the Edward MacDowell Medal, a prestigious lifetime achievement award presented by the artist residency program MacDowell. The annual accolade, named after the late American composer, celebrates figures who have made outstanding contributions to American culture. Previous recipients have included luminaries such as Stephen Sondheim and Toni Morrison.
The award celebrates Ono’s contributions to art, film, and music spanning her seven-decade career. At 91, Ono is noted for her role in the avant-garde Fluxus movement during the 1960s and her collaborations with John Lennon, including songs like “Give Peace a Chance” or “Imagine.” Moreover, Ono’s contributions to performance and installation work pushed the boundaries of contemporary art, often using her work to forward feminist and social activism. Her work has been the subject of several major museum and gallery exhibitions, most recently at London’s Tate Modern, on view until September 1st.
“There has never been anyone like her; there has never been work like hers,” said MacDowell board chair Nell Painter in a statement Sunday, as reported by the Associated Press. “Over some seven decades, she has rewarded eyes, provoked thought, inspired feminists, and defended migrants through works of a wide-ranging imagination. Enduringly fresh and pertinent, her uniquely powerful oeuvre speaks to our own times, so sorely needful of her leitmotif: Peace.”
Ono will not attend the award ceremony this July at the MacDowell campus in New Hampshire. Instead, her music manager, David Newgarden, will accept the medal on her behalf.
