Miss Gabriella Daris

Research project: Instructionalization and Counter-Institutionalization: Yoko Ono in the 1960s

Abstract

This project investigates the critical constellation of Yoko Ono's early artworks and writings so as to illuminate the conceptual underpinnings that inform their philosophical coherence. It provides an interpretative intervention on the existing literature on Yoko Ono to widen the viewpoint at a historico-ontological art-critical level. Examined within the context of the post-war political climate, artistic debates and socio-historical grounds of the 1950s and 1960s (in Japan, North America, and England), the research explicates how Ono problematized formal, structural and ontological characteristics of traditional media, on the one hand, and utilized traditional social mediations on the other, to question the notion of authority in the institutional and social context of art and redefine the art and economic system's notion of production and distribution. The thesis argues that Ono's art at once maintains resistance to established modes of artistic autonomy and sustains its critical social function.

Biography

I am an art and dance historian, critic, curator and educator. Formerly an art, dance and film critic at Blouin Artinfo and Modern Painters, I publish broadly across academic and curatorial readership on the intersection between art and philosophy. Solo exhibitions I have curated include Yoko Ono: Looking For... (2019); Liliane Lijn: Early Events, Five Narrative Sculptures (2017); Gustav Metzger: Dancing Tubes Interventions (2015), and Yoko Only: P.J. van Sandwijk's Photographs of The Plastic Ono Band (2014 & 2013). I am the convenor of the 1st Yoko Ono International Symposium (University of Cambridge/Anglia Ruskin University, 2019). My research and curatorial projects have been supported by the Getty Foundation, the Henry Moore Foundation, the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, the Emily Harvey Foundation, the British Society of Aesthetics, the Association for Art History and the British Council.

Areas of research interest

  • Jena Romanticism
  • Frankfurt School
  • Philosophy of Art
  • Philosophical Art Criticism
  • Conceptual art

Qualifications

  • MRes in Humanities & Cultural Studies, The London Consortium, University of London
  • MA (Hons) in Dance Writing & Criticism, University of Chichester/Sadler's Wells Theatre
  • BA (Hons) in the History of Art & English, Goldsmiths College, University of London
  • Yachtmaster Ocean Certificate of Competence, Royal Yachting Association (RYA)
  • Open Water Scuba Instructor Certificate, Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI)
  • Emergency First Response Instructor Certificate, Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI)
  • Advanced Certificate in Classical Ballet, Royal Academy of Dance (RAD)

Funding or awards received

  • Getty Foundation – Getty Library Research Grant (2023)
  • Waseda University - Visiting Research Fellowship (2022)
  • British Society of Aesthetics - Travel Grant (2019, 2022)
  • Association for Art History - Research Travel Grant (2022) - DECR Bursary (2023)
  • Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation - Curatorial Grant (2019) - Research Travel Grant (2022)
  • British Council Turing Scheme - Research Travel Grant (2022)
  • Kingston University - GRS Activity Fund (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023)
  • Henry Moore Foundation - Curatorial Grant (2019)

Publications

Daris, Gabriella (2021) ‘From An Atmospheric Point of View: Gustav Metzger in the Context of the Air War'. Performance Research (On Air), 26.7, pp. 154-162. (print and online)

Daris, Gabriella (2017) Liliane Lijn: Early Events, Five Narrative Sculptures. Edinburgh: Summerhall. 16pp. ISBN 978-1-9998109-0-0 (print)

Daris, Gabriella (2017) ‘Liliane Lijn's Fragments of Memories and The Fragmented Body'. Dispatch Feminist Moving Image, 6.08.17 (online)

Daris, Gabriella (2017) ‘Anagnosis of Hysteria: Bibliothèque/Amphithéâtre/Shrine Charcot'. Performance Research (On Libraries) 2 (2), pp. 122-129. ISSN 1352-8165 (print)

Daris, Gabriella (2016) ‘Interview with Jean-Jacques Lebel: A Trip with the Beat Generation at Centre Pompidou'. Blouin Artinfo, 4.07.16 (online)

Daris, Gabriella (2016) ‘Interview with Lucinda Childs on working with James Turrell and Philip Glass'. Blouin Artinfo, 04.01.16 (online)

Daris, Gabriella (2016) ‘Cannes Review: Stèphanie Di Giusto's The Dancer'. Blouin Artinfo, 24.05.16 (online)

Daris, Gabriella (2016) ‘Cannes Review: Kirill Serebrennikov's The Student'. Blouin Artinfo, 16.05.16 (online)

Daris, Gabriella (2016) ‘Preview: Mapping Dance: The Scores of Anna Halprin at Museum of Performance + Design San Francisco'. Blouin Artinfo, 15.03.16 (online)

Daris, Gabriella (2016) ‘Yoko Ono's Sky Piece to Jesus Christ at MAC Lyon'. Blouin Artinfo, 10.03.16 (online)

Daris, Gabriella (2016) ‘Holy Corners Golf Club: Golf balling as foreplay'. Performance Research (On Game Structures) 21 (4), pp. 134-136. ISSN 352-8166 (print)

Daris, Gabriella (2015) ‘Concerning the spiritual in Jaakko Mattila's art' = ‘Über das Geistige in der Kunst von Jaakko Mattila'. Jaakko Mattila Made in Japan 2, Tokyo: youkobo art space, pp. 2-3. ISBN 978-4-9908274-1-0 (print)

Daris, Gabriella (2015) ‘Women Atlas', ‘In memoriam, Dame Zaha Hadid'. Global Women Project by Jennifer White Kuri. Los Angeles, U.S.A.: Artists Corner, pp. 2-8, pp. 304-305. (print)

Daris, Gabriella (2015) ‘Preview: Yoko Ono: From My Window at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo'. Blouin Artinfo, 01.11.15 (online)

Daris, Gabriella (2015) ‘Review: The Melomania of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker in "Bartók/Beethoven/Schönberg"'. Blouin Artinfo, 23.10.15 (online)

Daris, Gabriella (2015) ‘Review: Decoding The Phantasmagoria of Wayne McGregor's Tree of Codes'. Blouin Artinfo, 15.09.15 (online)

Daris, Gabriella (2014) ‘The veil of ignorance or unveiling Yoko Ono's Cut Piece'. Scene: Critical Costume, Special Issue, Vol. 2 (1-2), pp. 133-145. ISSN 2044-3714 (print)

Daris, Gabriella, ed. (2013) Tarik Berber: Heterotopias of Time. London, U.K.: Square Knot. 23pp. (print)

Daris, Gabriella, ed. (2013) Kinetica Art Fair. London, U.K.: Kinetica Museum Press. 91pp. (print)

Rhoidis, Emmanuel [1866] (2013) Pope Joan: The Female Pope, trans. Gabriella Daris, Charles Hastings Collete and Antony Melville. London, U.K.: Atlas Press/The London Institute of Pataphysics, 63pp. ISBN 13:978-1-900565-19-6 (print)

Daris, Gabriella (2011) ‘Building Desires: Performing Liminalities in a Hybrid World'. Mahtab Hussain: Building Desires, London: Subway Gallery, n. p. (print)

Conference papers

Daris, Gabriella (2023), ‘Harvesting Fragments of the Future: the Afterlives of Yoko Ono's Instructions'. In: ‘Romantic Legacies of the Twentieth Century'. Association for Art History (AAH) 2023 Annual Conference, University College London, 12-14 April 2023.

Daris, Gabriella (2023), ‘Yoko Ono's Dialectics of Seeing'. In: ‘1972, Or Thereabouts'. Centre for Research in Visual Culture, University of Nottingham, 31 January 2023. 

Daris, Gabriella (2022), ‘On Some Motifs in Yoko Ono'. School of Culture, Media and Society, Waseda University, 5 December 2022.

Daris, Gabriella (2021) ‘Yoko Ono's Everyday Instruction'. In: 8th Mediterranean Congress of Aesthetics: Aesthetics of Everyday Life in Contemporary Cities. 9-10 September 2021, Delphi, Greece.

Daris, Gabriella (2020) ‘Artistic and Political Logics, Together Apart: From Benjamin to Rancière'. In: Culture Wars: Identity Politics, Aesthetics and Visual Arts. 7 March 2020, The Heretic Club, Cambridge Central Library, Cambridge, U.K.

Daris, Gabriella (2019) ‘Yoko Ono's Concept of Change'. In: Cambridge Festival of Ideas: Change. 14-27 October 2019, Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge, Cambridge, U.K.

Daris, Gabriella (2019) ‘The body of Christ qua the body of the cathedral: decoding the conceptual space of Michael Clark's Five Wounds'. In: 21st International Congress of Aesthetics. 22-26 July 2019, University of Belgrade, Serbia.

Daris, Gabriella (2017) ‘Theatres of Air: Staging Metaphysics (Rousseau, Artaud, Klein, Ono)'. In: Theatricality and the Arts Symposium. 23-24 September 2017, University of Lancaster, UK.

Daris, Gabriella (2017) ‘Pausing the Dying or Posing for Death? Deciphering the Hieroglyphs in Evgenii Bauer's The Dying Swan'. In: Death & the Maiden Conference, 21-24 July 2017, University of Winchester, U.K.

Daris, Gabriella (2016) ‘Breathing Space: Void and the Corporeality of Air in the Work of Gustav Metzger'. In: 42nd Association of Art Historians Annual Conference, 7-9 April 2016, University of Edinburgh, U.K.               

Daris, Gabriella (2015) ‘Dancing Tubes Interventions: Gustav Metzger and the Pythagorean Veil'. In: Performance Studies international #21: Aural Lighthouses Symposium, 19-20 May 2015, Santozeum, Santorini, Greece.

Daris, Gabriella (2014) ‘Cut Piece: Yoko Ono and the Veil of Ignorance'. 26 April 2014, Housmans Radical Booksellers, London, U.K.

Daris, Gabriella (2012) ‘Danse Macabre: The Red Shoes versus Black Swan'. 29 January 2012, British Film Institute, London, U.K.

Daris, Gabriella (2011) ‘Mother Earth Mediations: Turning Landscapes into Bodyscapes in Ana Mendieta's Silueta Series'. In: Imagining Spaces/Imagining Places, 24-26 August 2011, University of Helsinki, Finland.