Return for the man who brought Yoko to Liverpool

Apr 8 2008 by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post

DAVE CLAPHAM, Liverpool artist and film-maker, has been back in the city for a rather nostalgic reunion.

Now based in Portugal, Clapham, for many years a prominent figure on the Liverpool arts scene, had come to take a look at Yoko Ono’s recent performance at the Bluecoat.

What many people do not realise is that it was Clapham and not the Bluecoat who organised Yoko’s first performance at the venue. In 1967, then a junior lecturer at Liverpool Art College, he was given the task of introducing conceptual ideas to Fine Art students.

He had met Yoko in London when she expressed an interest in Liverpool.

The first problem was finding a suitable venue. Theatres were too small or too large or – like the Liverpool Everyman – turned him down.

Eventually, he called Celia Van Mullen at the Bluecoat, who said yes as long as he paid a booking fee up-front. Her committee were not keen, but Ms Van Mullen pencilled in the dates anyway.

Yoko, out of the country, returned just in time.

She sent a list of required props including string, a ladder, a white jug, a large hammer, bandages, white plinths and a smoke machine.

When the press got wind of Yoko’s friendship with Lennon, the tickets sold out. She arrived with then husband Tony Cox, and in the Hanover pub explained her performance might change depending on reactions.

In the event, she finally emerged before a restless audience, invited them to bandage her, “fly” by climbing a ladder and smashed the jug with a hammer after two attempts. The pieces were distributed among the audience with the hope they might be reunited one day. Yoko concluded by issuing high-pitched screams and noises through a microphone.

The next day, Clapham organised a “lecture” at the art college,Yoko getting inside a black bag with Tony Cox where “depending on interpretation, they both exchanged clothing or fornicated inside, or both”.

He now feels “culturally vindicated – glad to see Yoko happy and optimistic again”.