CRAIG BROWN: Ono! Yoko is saving the planet again 

Today, billboards across the UK carry a brand new four-word message in capital letters: I LOVE YOU EARTH.

People more used to driving past slogans for Carphone Warehouse or Kwik Fit Tyres may wonder what it is all about. Is EARTH the brand name of a new online bank, perhaps, or a furniture superstore?

Similar slogans, such as I LOVE YOU WALKERS CRISPS or I LOVE YOU GIRLS ALOUD, would be called advertisements. But I LOVE YOU EARTH is much, much more important.

How do I know this? Because it is the work of Yoko Ono, and London’s Serpentine Gallery, which is sponsoring it, has declared it an ‘iconic public artwork’.

‘I LOVE YOU EARTH is a reminder to those who see it to ask themselves: Do I love the Earth? How am I expressing that love? Could I do more?’ reads the explanation issued by the Gallery. ‘… It acts as a provocation, setting up an active relationship between artist and viewer that follows on from the questions and instructions included in Ono’s seminal 1964 book Grapefruit.’

Today, billboards across the UK carry a brand new four-word message in capital letters: I LOVE YOU EARTH (pictured: Glasgow Central Station)

Yoko Ono's artwork I LOVE YOU EARTH is unveiled to mark Earth Day 2021 on the Chiswick Towers' digital billboards in West London

Yoko Ono’s artwork I LOVE YOU EARTH is unveiled to mark Earth Day 2021 on the Chiswick Towers’ digital billboards in West London

‘Seminal’ is one of those wishy-washy words curators throw into the mix when they can’t think of anything else to say. Clearly something more accurate — ‘dotty’, say, or ‘over-publicised’ — would not be in keeping.

For those who might need reminding, Grapefruit was a short book of ‘instructional poems’ that included such words of wisdom as ‘Smoke everything you can, including your pubic hair’.

How many people followed this advice? Unfortunately, official figures remain unavailable, but I doubt it caught on, even among penny-pinching smokers who hoped to save money.

I wonder whether Ms Ono practised what she preached. Her singing has long had a screechy, spluttery, throat-clearing quality, but that might well be its natural tone.

Are the curators at the Serpentine Gallery correct in saying that I LOVE YOU EARTH ‘acts as a provocation’? In order to provoke, you have to do or say something that a fair number of people would regard as tasteless or abhorrent. In these terms, I LOVE YOU EARTH is as bland as can be, more suitable for printing on a baby’s bib, or in a Hallmark greetings card.

Personally, I prefer the chart-topping thought offered by the New Seekers in 1972: ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony.’ If provocation is what is wanted, the Serpentine Gallery might consider including I HATE YOU EARTH on its next shortlist. Or why not the marginally more tactful I’VE GONE OFF YOU EARTH — IT’S MY FAULT NOT YOURS?

The trouble with Yoko Ono is not that she is provocative but that she is anodyne

The trouble with Yoko Ono is not that she is provocative but that she is anodyne 

The trouble with Yoko Ono is not that she is provocative but that she is anodyne. Over the period of a single fortnight, her tweets included, ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’, ‘Start by imagining a world where all of us are having good fun’, ‘Believe in following your dreams’ and ‘You have infinite wisdom’.

She is in fact the most cosy and conservative of conceptual artists, more cutting-hedge than cutting-edge. And this is why big organisations give her prizes: they know she is very rich, very well-connected and won’t rock the boat. Why else would she have been presented with The Observer Lifetime Achievement Ethical Award?

Back in 2003, she released a New Year message: ‘Let’s sing, dance and hug each other, to bring in a New Year, and with it, a new world.’ Anyone looking for provocation would have been better off tuning in to the Queen’s Christmas message.

Two years ago, Yoko tweeted her followers to ‘give us some advice that will make our lives heal and shine’. Tips came flooding in, though it might not have been the sort of advice she was expecting.

‘If you wait until ten minutes before Tesco closes, you can buy an entire birthday cake reduced to 50p,’ replied one follower, while another suggested: ‘If you’re commuting from Barnsley to Sheffield a McDonald’s coffee is now 10p cheaper at Tankersley than at Meadowhall Retail Park.’

You would have thought that such down-to-earth responses might have prompted the Serpentine Gallery to ask whether displaying I LOVE YOU EARTH in large letters is the best possible use for a billboard.

But they carry on, undaunted, saying: ‘As communities across the UK return to public places in our cities they will be welcomed by Yoko Ono’s powerful positive statement for the planet.’

Speaking for myself, it makes me want to nip back inside and draw the curtains.