On June 6, the Venice Biennale presented artist Yoko Ono with one of its most prestigious honors, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. Ono was nominated for the distinction along with American John Baldessari by the director of this year's biennale, Daniel Birnbaum.
Ono's contributions to the formulation of conceptual and performance art have long been overshadowed by her marriage to Beatles' member John Lennon and subsequent control of the musician's estate after his murder in December 1980. However, a series of recent exhibitions and awards have brought renewed focus on Ono's artistic career, notably, "YES Yoko Ono," which was organized by the Japan Society Gallery in New York in 2000 and toured to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, in 2004.
The Golden Lion represents the culmination of the current contemporary art establishment's embrace of Ono, who wrote in an e-mail interview with The Japan Times that she felt "honored" by the recognition.