Yoko Ono's Bag Piece, 1964/2024

I am a timid exhibitionist naked in the Tate Modern. I instinctively cover my breasts. I have taken my clothes off in a dark sack for an audience of four, maybe five, people. They are in a pile at my feet. I stand still like that for a few seconds in the middle of the moment. The gallery is white. I do the best I can to be present, but I am only recently enlightened. I am naked in the Tate Modern. A woman and a man laugh as I jostle about with my top. They talk amongst themselves about whether I can see out. I can, but I say nothing. They film my lonesome sack with their phones, and one says I’m brave. I smile (they do not see me smile). I think about how on getting in that bag everyone seems to forget that you actually exist, like a child without object permanence. The two people speak of me with the same confidence one would a dead person in a portrait or a deaf relative, all while witnessing my continued existence; my physical gesturing as I pull down my underwear. Look! It says. Here I am in this black bag! Witness the traces of my movement upon the surface! I am also but a body beneath this darkness! But it is no use; by the grace of Yoko Ono my flesh has been transubstantiated into art object. I accept my fate. I flap around a bit more before revealing myself, like a climactic bunny in the hat of a magician. I am clothed again. The whole thing lasts five minutes. The attendant asks me what it was like as I put on my boots. I offer some response, I am not sure what. Three people clap meekly. I continue with my day.

User: Isabella Roskill
4 June 2024