Yoko Ono?
Afternoon in Studio E Lime Grove after the refurbishment with EMI 201 cameras. Setting up and – a joke this – “rehearsing” for that evening’s “24 Hours”. (“24 Hours” launched on 4th October 1965 and focussed on investigative journalism. Hmmm.)
We were scheduled for a pre-record. The subject was this fairly petite young girl in a tweedy type suit – jacket and skirt (as I recall it was a bluey shade of relatively thick material) – and the pre-record was to be an interview with her. During the interview it turned out that she was an artist – and a performance artist at that. What she was going to do was to sit in an appropriate Art gallery with a pair of scissors next to her. The visitors were expected to come up to her, pick up the pair of scissors and snip a piece of material from her clothing. Obviously, gradually, there would be very little of the clothing left on her.
She wanted to demonstrate this piece of performance art, so she asked one of the crew to come up. Pick up the scissors and cut off a piece from her clothing. We were all free to volunteer, as I recall, but the guy who responded was doing the camera to my left. I can’t recall his name, but he was reasonably tall, rather bulkily built with short, light coloured, curly hair – and must have been in his early twenties.
So, in vision, he walked to the front of his camera, ripped off his cans, stepped a couple of steps towards this artist (who remained sitting still throughout), picked up the scissors and made his cuts. Well, it was thick material in the skirt, so it was more of a hack than a cut, but eventually he managed to remove a piece of material: it was an isosceles triangle, the piece he removed, base from knee to knee and the apex pointing towards the top of the skirt. He retuned to his camera with a bit of a smirk on his face, but also relieved that this action was over. The piece was later broadcast in the show, but at the time I did not take any notice of who the artist was.
I thought no more about this until recently (2021), looking for some entry on Wikipedia, I chanced on this:
“…. “Cut Piece“
[Yoko] Ono was a pioneer of conceptual art and performance art. A seminal performance work is “Cut Piece”, first performed in 1964 at the Yamaichi Concert Hall in Kyoto, Japan. The piece consisted of Ono, dressed in her best suit, kneeling on a stage with a pair of scissors in front of her. She invited and then instructed audience members to join her on stage and cut pieces of her clothing off. Confronting issues of gender, class and cultural identity, Ono sat silently until the piece concluded at her discretion. The piece was subsequently performed at … London’s Africa Centre as part of the Destruction in Art Symposium in 1966. Of the piece, John Hendricks wrote in the catalogue to Ono’s Japan Society retrospective: “[Cut Piece] unveils the interpersonal alienation that characterizes social relationships between subjects, dismantling the disinterested Kantian aesthetic model … It demonstrates the reciprocity between artists, objects, and viewers and the responsibility beholders have to the reception and preservation of art.”…” (Wikipedia)
Well! There was definitely a responsibility that the cameraman had to the reception of this particular piece of performance art, and clearly he got away with it – there were no adverse comments over talkback (we others were silently cheering him on), and, on retrospect, the triangle was not all that large – a third of the way up the thigh, perhaps?
So! I was there! I was in the studio with Yoko Ono, almost certainly – I had Yoko Ono in my viewfinder and it has taken all these (some 55) years for me to recognise it.
David Brunt
The art festival during which she performed the piece in 1966 was this Wikipedia entry:
Destruction in Art Symposium
…
Further checking on the Only appearance shows that the live festival event bit with the dress cutting was 28th September. Which I guess might make it the 27th (or 29th) September “24 Hours”.
Chris Eames
This brings back some memories, and I confess to being the cameraman in question! …
I didn’t have much choice about ‘volunteering’ for the task, as my camera was in the right position, leaving another camera unmanned would have made coverage difficult. All I remember being told was to keep as far to my left as possible, so as not to mask the shot.
The dress that Yoko was wearing, as you say, was thick woollen material. The scissors were unbelievably blunt – possibly on purpose. My fingers were sore from the effort. The one thing that made it easier was that, unlike John Lennon, I did not find the lady the least bit attractive. I had much better waiting for me at home!
My only regret is that I did not keep said piece of material. At the time Yoko Ono was relatively unknown. Now it might be worth a fortune!
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“Tonight” finished in June 1965, “Nationwide” started in September 1969.
The only possibility was “24 Hours” since that was located in Studio E. “24 Hours” launched on 4th October 1965.
What confuses the issue and memories is that Cliff Michelmore was the main presenter of “24 Hours”, certainly in the early days. Kenneth Allsop and Fyfe Robertson from the old “Tonight” were also involved with “24 Hours”.
Postscript
From “The Sunday Times” Magazine – issue dated Sunday 4th February 2024
