Mick Hartley

The Yoko Ono exhibition at Tate Modern has received all-round positive reviews – at last a chance to re-evaluate one of the great pioneers of conceptual and performance art. Laura Freeman in the Times, for instance: "This exhibition took me by surprise. I went expecting oddity and wilful obscurity, I left charmed, amused and (mostly) won over." Well I went expecting oddity and pretension, and that's pretty much what I got.

Much is made of Cut Piece, for instance – her most famous attempt at performance art, where she sits entirely still while invited members of the audience, armed with scissors, come up and cut off her clothes bit by bit until she's naked. You might think this is intended as a powerful comment on the male attitude towards women, but that doesn't seem to be at all what she meant. She said that the performer could be any gender and denied any feminist message. "It was a form of giving, giving and taking. It was a kind of criticism against artists, who are always giving what they want to give. I wanted people to take whatever they wanted to, so it was very important to say you can cut wherever you want to ". And, it's "my hope for world peace". Of course.

Then there's a whole wall's worth of tiny messages and instructions from her book Grapefruit, which you may or may not find whimsical and haiku-like. Such as "Steal all the clocks and watches in the world. Destroy them", and "Stick a carrot up your arse and watch six back-to-back episodes of Coronation Street". [OK, one of those I made up.] 

I was, I admit, delighted with "White Chess Set" – all white pieces: "play until you forget which pieces are yours". A few tables were set up, with people happily playing along. A rare spark of mischievous subversive humour. 

It's been claimed that people hated Yoko because she split up the Beatles. Maybe, but they were clearly splitting anyway. I think what annoyed people more was the vacuous narcissism of the millionaires' "bed-in" and the "Give peace a chance", "Peace is yours if you want it", "Imagine peace", "War is over" stuff. There are endless quotes about peace in the show; about how people need to put aside their differences and live in harmony. To which the only response really is: tell that to fucking Putin. Tell that to Hamas.

It may have had (slightly) more resonance at a time when war mainly meant Vietnam, but it hasn't worn well. All it leads to is empty sloganising. A room is set aside for people to write their thoughts on the wall. The dominant messages: "Free Palestine"; "Free Gaza".