"I'm gonna start a revolution from my bed"

Hello again. I'm sure you know about John Lennon, the guy from the beatles. During the Vietnam War, in 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono held two week-long Bed-Ins for Peace in Amsterdam and Montreal, which were their non-violent ways of protesting wars and promoting peace.


Here is what I got off the internet, Wikipedia specifically.

Amsterdam bed-in
Knowing their March 20, 1969 marriage would be a huge press event, John and Yoko decided to use the publicity to promote world peace. They spent their honeymoon in the presidential suite (Room #702) at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel for a week between March 25 and 31, inviting the world's press into their hotel room every day between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. After their other stunts, such as the nude cover of the Two Virgins album, the press were expecting them to be having sex, but instead the couple were sitting in bed—in John's words "like Angels"—talking about peace with signs over their bed reading "Hair Peace" and "Bed Peace". After seven days, they flew to Vienna, Austria, where they held a Bagism press conference.

During April 1969, John and Yoko sent acorns to the heads of state in various countries around the world in hopes that they would plant them as a symbol of peace. For eight months, the couple was not granted a single visit with any world leader. Their marriage ("You can get married in Gibraltar near Spain"), the first Bed-In ("Talking in our beds for a week"), the Vienna press conference ("Made a lightning trip to Vienna...The newspapers said..."), and the acorns ("Fifty acorns tied in a sack") were all mentioned in the song The Ballad of John and Yoko.

Drove from Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton
Talking in our beds for a week
The newspapers said
say what're you doing in bed
I said we're only trying to get us some peace.


Montreal Bed-in
Their second Bed-In was planned to take place in New York, but John was not allowed into the country because of his 1968 cannabis conviction. Instead they held the event in the Bahamas at the Sheraton Oceanus Hotel, flying there on May 24, 1969, but after spending one night in the heat, they decided to move to Montreal.


Recording Give Peace A Chance by Roy KerwoodEventually, they flew to Montreal on May 26 where they stayed in Room 1738 and 1742 at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. During their seven day stay, they invited Timothy Leary, Tommy Smothers, Dick Gregory, and Al Capp and all but Capp sang on the peace anthem Give Peace a Chance, recorded in the hotel room on June 1. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation conducted interviews from the hotel room.

In December 1969 John and Yoko spread their messages of peace with billboards reading "WAR IS OVER! If You Want It - Happy Christmas From John and Yoko". These Billboards went up in eleven major world cities.


So do I consider this performance art? Yes I do. Lets see why. Firstly we have to define performance art. Performance art refers to art in which the actions of an individual or a group at a particular place and in a particular time constitute the work. It can happen anywhere, at any time, or for any length of time. Performance art can be any situation that involves four basic elements: time, space, the performer's body and a relationship between performer and audience.

So we have created a checklist. Yes it happened in 1969 during the Vietnam War. It took place in the hotels in Amsterdam and Montreal. It can be considered a performance because the two performers John and Yoko actually had a audience. The audience were primarily the media people who facilated the transmission of this art and its idea to the public. It can be considered art because it is an expression by the performance to urge the public to make love instead of war.