GINKGO BY YOKO

Metro Times
By Casey Coston, May 3, 2000

Last Friday afternoon saw a curious ceremony take place at Times Square in downtown Detroit, where artist and world-famous widow Yoko Ono was on hand to dedicate one of her famed "wishing trees." Ono characterizes the trees as living, growing sculptures, and she has apparently planted many of them around our fair globe. Visitors are encouraged to whisper their wishes to the tree, which is of the ginkgo variety.

On hand for the ceremony were Mayor Archer, city cultural affairs czarina Marilyn Wheaton, DIA Director Graham Beale and a smattering of suburban art collectors, curious onlookers, and several super-nerdy Beatles/Ono fans.

I also spied Book Beat’s Cary Loren, doggedly yet unsuccessfully attempting to secure Yoko’s John Hancock on her 1995 Instruction Paintings book which Loren had brought down for the occasion.

Just across Grand River Avenue and overlooking the Times Square park is the Parker Webb Building, the top floor of which holds local builder Gilbert "Buzz" Silverman’s world-renowned collection of Fluxus art, the loosely affiliated avant-garde group of post-dada 1960s-’70s artists of which Ono was a part. Silverman
has quite a few Ono pieces in his collection, and the planting of the tree effectively gave him another, or at least a prime view of her "living sculpture."

After the ceremony, a select group of dignitaries and art-collecting suburbanites were allowed access to the Parker Webb building for a reception. I joined up with Matthew Moore and Daniel Gillies, students who had motored down from the Center for Creative Studies for the occasion, as we attempted to drop in on the post-dedication reception. Our efforts were sharply rebuffed, however, by the detached intercom voice at the door, as he crisply rejected our entry, while simultaneously telling the woman in front of us the password code. Duh. Thanks for the key.
Given the police presence right behind me, I decided to forgo the opportunity and spent a few moments avoiding the nervous superfan clutching Beatles memorabilia on the sidewalk.

After the reception, everyone piled into their BMWs, Jags, Mercedes and SUVs and caravanned over to the Detroit Club for lunch, approximately three short blocks away. One can only hope the little ginkgo tree wasn’t choked by the exhaust fumes.
By the way, the Detroit Club, once a bastion of overstuffed, old world, Commander McBragg-style pipe-puffing, has certainly shaken off the mothballs as well as its dress code, as Ono had no problem getting past the doorman in her tennis shoes (of course, they were of the Chanel variety).

In other news, local squirrels, fauna and homeless folks were said to be rejoicing at the prospect of free ginkgo biloba in the Times Square neighborhood.

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