Yoko Ono, the Conceptual artist and widow of Beatle John Lennon has been hospitalised in New York after being admitted with severe flu-like symptoms. Elliot Mintz, her press agent told well wishers on Friday that it was just a bad case of seasonal flu, quashing rumours that Ms Ono, 83, had suffered a heart attack or stroke. He added she would most likely be released from the hospital on Saturday. Ono spent the night in Mount Sinai Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan, he added.
Last night around 9:00 pm EST an ambulance was called to The Dakota Building at 72nd Street and Central Park West in Manhattan, where the artist still lives. She and Lennon were married on March 20, 1969, and their son, Sean, was born in 1975. Her son Sean Ono Lennon also tweeted that his mother was doing well.
Yoko Ono is an award-winning multi-media artist and peace activist, who constantly challenges and stretches the traditional boundaries of sculpture, painting, theater and music. Ono was one the first artists as early as 1964, to put language on the wall of the gallery. She often invited the viewer to finish the work. She was also one of the first artists to evolve Happenings into what has been accepted as Performance art.Her seminal performance art in the early 1960s, experimental films and collaborative music with John Lennon in the 1970s and international one-woman shows and retrospectives during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s illustrate her varied career. Ono is well known for her peace initiatives both by herself and, later, with events created with her husband John Lennon – Bed-In for Peace and War Is Over! (If You Want It). She is now widely known for her more recent events with her IMAGINE PEACE TOWER in Iceland and participatory Wish Trees throughout the world. Reflecting on her reputation for being outrageous, Yoko smiles and says, “I do have to rely on my own judgement. I have my own rhythm and my own timing, and that’s simply how it is.”
We all wish her better!