First time tourist... Yoko Ono, in Sydney for trhe Biennale, surveys the sights yesterday.
Photos: JEFF DARMANIN

By MICHAEL BODEY

THE top drawcard of Sydney's Biennale strolled Circular Quay unnoticed yesterday, looking like any other first-time tourist.

Cultural icon Yoko Ono took in the sights after overseeing the installation of her featured work in this year's international contemporary art festival.

She even had NSW Art Gallery director Edmund Capon rolling up his sleeves and "mucking in" like a furniture removalist.

When Ono saw the 100 coffins that make up her Ex It exhibition at the art gallery, she realised the feng shui was all wrong. So Capon, and others, moved the coffins to face away from the gallery's door.

Ono is keeping to herself in Sydney but she has warmed to the city on her first Australian visit.

The conceptual artist particularly loved the Sydney Opera House, the venue of her sold-out "happening", or lecture, tomorrow night.

But as the 66-year-old posed in front of the Sydney landmark, she joked: "Don't take the picture too close to me. I'm not 18 any more."

Ono also had a private tour of the Museum of Contemporary Art, during which she fell in love with John Mawururndjul and Maningrida's Arnhem Land bark paintings.

Further viewings of Aboriginal art will now be organised for her.

Ono's lecture, on an unspecified subject, is rumoured to include spontaneous elements of visual art, as well as theatrics. It will be web-cast from 8.3Opm on www.biennaleofsydney.com.au

John Lennon's muse will also project her short film featuring Lennon, Smile, on to the side of the AMP Building in Circular Quay from 6pm over the next two evenings.

Ono is one of 48 artists featured in the 12th Biennale Of Sydney, which already has its share of curiosities.

A horse has passed by McCubbin paintings at the NSW Art Gallery, reclusive Japanese avant-garde artists refused to talk and giant balls were inflated in a hall of mirrors at the MCA.

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH Thursday, May 25, 2000

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