Yoko Ono, the visionary artist, musician, and activist whose work has shaped contemporary culture for more than seven decades, will be celebrated at The Broad in Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind, the artist’s first solo museum exhibition in Southern California, organized in collaboration with Tate Modern, London. In spring 2026, visitors will be invited to directly participate in many of Ono’s works that transform simple acts into expressions of peace and connection. The Broad’s olive trees on East West Bank Plaza will become Wish Trees for Los Angeles, a key installation (first realized in 1996 at Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica) inviting audiences to tie their own wishes to the tree branches in a living expression of hope in Los Angeles. The exhibition will be on view May 23 through October 11, 2026.

A belief that art could be made solely from the mind informed her early “instruction” works from the mid-1950s to today that will be on view in the exhibition. In these interactive pieces, short texts describe actions for viewers to complete or reflect upon. On view will be the typescript drafts for her famous 1964 book Grapefruit, which includes over 200 of these “instructions” arranged by types including music, painting, events, poetry, and objects: “Listen to the sound of the Earth turning,” “Fly,” “Put your shadows together until they become one,” and “Draw a map to get lost.” These works, which prompt audiences to think, imagine, and question, exist somewhere between score and poem. In addition to the text-based works, a selection of the instructions will be activated for audience participation, such as Painting to Hammer a Nail (1961/1966).

Materials from the artist’s international campaigns for peace and displays of anti-war activism will also be on view, such as Acorn Event (1968) and Bed Peace (1969), projects done in collaboration with her late husband John Lennon. In 1968, Ono and Lennon planted two acorns as a living sculpture for the Exhibition of British Sculpture at Coventry Cathedral in England. Soon after, they sent acorns to world leaders to plant in their gardens as symbols of world peace. In 1969, the couple staged their famous “bed-in” events in Amsterdam and Montreal, leveraging media attention to speak out against the Vietnam War.