Radical Instructions: Yoko Ono and Radical Imagination

Abstract

Although art is not part of the domain of radical politics, it may bear certain radical qualities. What are they? And precisely what is “radical” about Yoko Ono’s “instructions,” if anything? In this paper, I critically reconstruct the concept of instruction through the politics of form. I reflect upon Ono’s instruction pieces from the viewpoint of a historical ontology of art and imaginary institutionalization theories to illuminate their philosophical meaning and social-political undercurrents and to renew our understanding of the instruction form. More specifically, I problematize the instruction/institution dialectic and develop the central argument that the radical potential of the instruction pieces lies in their contribution to the radical imagination and the project of autonomy.