Black TV showing a cloudy sky sits on top of a white block in front of a gray wall

Sky T.V. for Washington, Yoko Ono, 1966/2014. Closed-circuit video installation, dimensions variable.
Joseph H. Hirshhorn Purchase Fund, 2016, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Photo: William Andrews

In collaboration with Yoko Ono, the Getty Research Institute and the Feminist Center for Creative Work will join more than 50 arts institutions around the world to present a live 24-hour video streaming of the sky via Zoom to audiences at home in celebration of the Solstice and Strawberry Moon Eclipse.

This event is inspired by Yoko Ono’s second conceptualization of Sky T.V. in 1967 for the Lisson Gallery, which she described as “a T.V. just to see the sky. Different channels for different skies, high-up sky, low sky, etc.” SKY T.V. 1966 (furniture piece) was a video sculpture described by Ono as “a closed circuit T.V. set up in the gallery for looking at the sky.” It broadcast a live video feed of the sky from above the building where it was installed—a way to bring the sky inside, even if a space lacked windows.

At a time of profound revolution and reflection, restricted travel but great desire for connection, we seek to draw upon Ono’s invocation of the sky as a space of generative possibility and renewal as well as a territory beyond the reach of capital and ownership.

The free event takes place at 5:42 a.m. PDT on June 21, 2021. Register in advance online or watch the livestream on the Getty Research Institute YouTube channel.

Read more about Yoko Ono’s fascination with the sky. 

The participating institutions include:

Albertinum (Dresden State Art Collections), Dresden, Germany
Alice Yard, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago
Art Exchange, Colchester, UK
Artpool Art Research Center, Budapest, Hungary
Artsonje, Seoul, South Korea
Asia Art Archive in America, India & Hong Kong
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, US
Associação Cultural Videobrasil, São Paulo, Brazil
British Antarctic Survey, Halley Research Station, Antarctica
Casa de la Cultura Tijuana, Mexico
Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy
Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
Collaborative Cataloguing Japan, Philadelphia, US
Contemporary Calgary, Canada
Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, Jacksonville, US
Dashboard US, Atlanta, US
Feminist Center for Creative Work, Los Angeles, US
Gallery Trax, Yamanashi, Japan
Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, US
Greenland National Museum and Archives, Nuuk, Greenland
Group Locale, Tunis, Tunisia
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C., US
Honolulu Museum of Art, Hawaii, US
Houston Center for Photography, Texas, US
Hyde Park Arts Center, Chicago, US
Interstitial Press, Australia
Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, US
Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark
M+, Hong Kong
Malmö Könsthall, Sweden
Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan
Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
Museo de Arte Carillo Gil, Mexico City, Mexico
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City, Mexico
Museum of Art & Design, San José, Costa Rica
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Japan
Muzeum Sztuki Łódź, Łódź, Poland
National Gallery Singapore
Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona, US
Rangi Gallery & ARK Artist Residency Program, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Recess Art, Brooklyn, US
Reykjavík Art Museum, Reykjavík, Iceland
Rice Brewing Sisters Club, Anseong, South Korea
SALT, Istanbul, Turkey
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, US
Schaumbad, Graz, Austria
Singapore Art Museum, Singapore
Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab, Taipei City, Taiwan
Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
TEOR/éTica, San José, Costa Rica
The Museum of Modern Art, New York City, US
The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia
Tselinny Center of Contemporary Culture, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Wali Chafu Collective, Nairobi, Kenya
Womanifesto in Sydney, Australia; Udonthani, Thailand & Baroda, India
Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art, Cape Town, South Africa