Yoko Ono Helped Bring A Classic ‘Simpsons’ Joke To Life

The world doesn’t deserve Yoko Ono’s sense of humor. She’s heard every “misogynistic, racist” insult in the book, all because she had the gall to fall in love with a Beatle, and for a Beatle to fall in love with her. But Ono, who once called her one-woman-show the “Museum of Modern [F]art” (and don’t forget her “close-up shots of butts on a treadmill” film, Bottoms), has never let the vitriol consume her — she’s proudly weird and wonderful, and in on the joke.

“When a woman artist makes a work with sense of humor,” she told Vice, “the world asks exactly like what you are asking now. ‘Why is it important to stage that kind of show?’ Seriously, give us women artists a chance!”

Ono recently curated an exhibit at Iceland’s Reykjavik Art Museum called “Yoko Ono: One More Story…” which “aims to reveal the basic elements that define Yoko Ono’s extensive and diverse artistic career – a voyage through the notion of art itself, with a strong social and political engagement.” Also, The Simpsons references. In the classic season four episode “Homer’s Barbershop Quartet,” Homer forms, well, a barbershop quartet with Skinner, Apu, and Barney. The Be Sharps are an immediate sensation, even winning the Grammy Award for Outstanding Soul, Spoken Word, or Barbershop Album of the Year, but the fame just as quickly goes to their heads. The group names their second album Bigger Than Jesus, and Barney, who complains barbershop is “stagnant,” starts dating a Japanese conceptual artist who looks like Yoko Ono. After the group breaks up, Barney and Not-Yoko head to Moe’s Tavern, where she orders a “single plum floating in perfume served in a man’s hat.”

One of the pieces on display at the Reykjavik Art Museum is exactly that.

The museum’s PA system should play “Number Eight (Burp)” on a loop.

(Via Pitchfork)