 SHE has plastered her message of peace across a Times Square billboard and spent a week in bed to promote world harmony. Now Japanese artist Yoko Ono is to create an interactive work in Tate Liverpool to highlight her anti-war protest. The Imagine Peace Map Room 2003 invites visitors to mark where in the world they would most like to be untroubled. This is the first time Ms Ono has exhibited her work in Liverpool since she showed her performance art in the Bluecoat Arts Centre in September, 1967. Adrian George, curator of exhibitions and collections at Tate Liverpool, said: "The walls are covered with maps and visitors are given an ink stamp saying 'Imagine peace' which they are asked to stamp on wherever in the world they want peace. "Over time, the troublespots and places that have had a lot of problems with war tend to be heavily stamped and places that people see as utopic are unmarked." A team of Ms Ono's assistants are currently in Italy to collect the work from where it was being shown as part of the Venice Biennale art festival earlier this month. Opening on Friday, November 14, it will be a key feature of the Art, Lies and Videotape exhibition at the Albert Dock gallery until mid-January. Ms Ono's last exhibition in Liverpool was one of only a few performances of her famous Cut Piece which involved her sitting passively while members of the audience scissored off her clothes. "It has only been performed a few times and at a few venues in the world so it was important for Liverpool. "The Imagine Map Peace Room is the same because if you had not been to Venice then you would not have seen it yet." Art, Lies and Videotape is the first Tate exhibition to explore key moments in performance history and includes works by major artists. Contributors include futurist Luigi Russolo and Francis Picabia to more contemporary artists like Vito Acconci, Ron Athey, Sophie Calle and Catherine Opie. The exhibition is organised around six linked themes including Lost Histories, works that have been over-looked, Image as Icon, looking at how many performance images have become more famous than than the event they document, and Fact or Fiction, a close look at what is real and what is not. * ART, Lies and Videotape opens at Tate Liverpool, Albert Dock, on November 14. Tickets £4 and £3 concessions. |