Yoko Ono to Receive 2025 IPA | AIP Lifetime Achievement Award in Art

The International Peace Alliance | Alliance Internationale de la Paix (IPA | AIP) is delighted to announce that the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award in Art will be presented to visionary Japanese‐American conceptual and performance artist Ms. Yoko Ono. The award will be conferred at the Peace Ambassadors Awards Gala & Grand Ball on Friday, September 26, 2025, at the historic King Edward Hotel in Toronto, Canada.

“Ms. Yoko Ono’s radical imagination has invited generations to envision a more compassionate and connected world. Her art dissolves boundaries between artist and audience, challenging us all to become co‐creators of peace.” 

— Dr. Alvin Curling, IPA‐AIP President

A Trailblazer of Conceptual Art & Social Practice 

Well before her celebrated partnership with JohnLennon, Ms. Yoko Ono (b. 1933) emerged from the Fluxus milieu of 1960s New York and Tokyo as a pioneering force who redefined what art could be. Drawing on Zen Buddhism, Dada, and avant‐garde music, she dispensed with the notion that art must be a fixed object, instead offering instructions, actions, and experiences that empower the public to complete the work.

Signature Works

• Canvas, Hammer, Chain, Nails (1966) – Viewers drive nails into a panel and knot strands of their own hair, physically inscribing themselves into the piece.

• BagPiece (1964) – Two participants disrobe and redress inside a light‐sealed black bag, erasing markers of race, gender, and class.

• CutPiece (1964) – Ms. Ono sits silently while audience members snip away her clothing, exposing themes of vulnerability, consent, and the female body.

• Grapefruit (1964, book) – Over 150 poetic instructions (“Imagine the clouds dripping...”) that readers may realize in mind or action.

• Play ItByTrust (White Chess Set) (1966) – An all‐white chessboard where opponents become indistinguishable, symbolizing the futility of conflict.

• Ceiling/YESPainting (1966) – A ladder, magnifying glass, and a tiny handwritten “YES” reward the climber’s quest with affirmation and hope.

• Voice Piece for Soprano (1961) – Visitors scream into a microphone, liberating raw emotion inside the museum.

• Wish Tree (1996–present) – Participants write hopes on tags hung from a living tree; wishes are later interred at Ms. Ono’s Imagine Peace Tower in Reykjavík, Iceland.

Across more than six decades, Ms. Ono’s work has fused music, performance, and activism, inspiring artists such as Marina Abramović, Suzanne Lacy, and Rirkrit Tiravanija, while galvanizing global peace movements through projects like Bed‐In and Bagism with JohnLennon.