Joshua Chambers-Letson “Yoko Ono and the Art of the Breakdown”

Screams have always been a component of Yoko Ono’s artistic practice, but rather than received as an act of communication, the dominant reception has been not to listen. Offering a meditation on the queer dynamics of Asian American grief, this talk lingers in and listens to Ono’s shatter and scream as she mobilizes affective expressions that are at times explosive, and at others depressive, to perform various modes of coming undone, shattering, falling apart, and breaking down.