Yoko Ono

Cut Piece, Kyoto, 1964 Ono sat still on a stage with a pair of scissors in front of her and invited the audience to come up, one at a time, and cut away pieces of her clothing to keep. She said nothing and did nothing; every choice belonged to the people holding the scissors, which is exactly what makes the piece so uncomfortable and so widely taught. First staged at Yamaichi Concert Hall in Kyoto in July 1964, it reached Carnegie Recital Hall in New York in March 1965, where Albert and David Maysles filmed it. That film is the version most people see. A 2003 Paris performance reframed it, asking participants to send their fragment of cloth to someone they loved.