See This Now: ‘Give Peace a Chance’

Travel Blog  •  Eva Holland  •  06.23.09 | 10:14 AM ET

Photo by Eva Holland

As we’ve noted, this spring marked the 40th anniversary of John and Yoko’s iconic “bed-ins” for peace, first at the Amsterdam Hilton and later (and more famously) at Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth Hotel. The commemorations in those two cities have passed, but a powerful exhibit about the Montreal bed-in has just opened at the Museum at Bethel Woods (aka the Woodstock museum), and it will remain open through the summer.

The exhibit is called “Give Peace a Chance: John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Bed-In for Peace,” and it revolves around the work of photographer Gerry Deiter. Deiter was on assignment for LIFE when he spent a full eight days—the duration of the bed-in, which ran from May 26 to June 2 in Room 1742—with John and Yoko, but in the end, his photo feature was never published. The display at Bethel Woods marks the North American debut for the collection, a remarkably intimate set of black and white images that show everything from the media frenzy in the room—boom mics, cameramen and others are included in some of the shots—to the rare quiet moments when the couple was able to rest.

Photo by Eva Holland

Beyond the photos, there’s an odd assortment of ephemera from the event on display: original room service orders, an amusing list of complaints from the hotel’s housekeepers (they were unimpressed by all the flower petals being strewn around), testimonials from visitors and more. Much of it focuses on the impromptu recording of “Give Peace a Chance” right there in the room, and includes some cocktail party-worthy trivia. (Did you know that comedian Tommy Smothers was in on the recording? Or that a visiting group of Hare Krishnas provided most of the musical accompaniment?) A couple of powerful larger-scale installations—a re-creation of Room 1742 and a sculpted wish tree—round out the exhibit.

I’m no diehard Beatlemaniac, but I found John and Yoko’s deliberate mixing of music, humor, activism and celebrity status, as depicted in Deiter’s work, extremely compelling. As museum director Wade Lawrence told me: “They were selling peace like selling soap ... It was a joke, but a joke with a message.”

See it now: “Give Peace a Chance” is open daily from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. through to September 7.


Eva Holland is co-editor of World Hum. She is a former associate editor at Up Here and Up Here Business magazines, and a contributor to Vela. She's based in Canada's Yukon territory.


3 Comments for See This Now: ‘Give Peace a Chance’

Joan Athey 06.23.09 | 11:36 AM ET

And did you know that it actually was Yoko who first said the words “All we are saying is give peace a chance”?  The exhibition is beautiful and informative, as Eve so perfectly puts it in her last paragraph.  I was no Beatlemanic myself. I appreciated them of course.  But having spent two years putting the book and the exhibition together, I bow to the genius that the Bed-in was as a way to sell peace. Peace is not profitable.  War is. Rather than standing up behind a podium and addressing crowds, which could be fatal, the did the most vulnerable thing anyone can do:  be in pubic in their pyjamas. The combination of Yoko’ performance art experience and John’s humour got the message across using the media.  The Bed-in is a blueprint for what Yoko is doing today.  And if the photos had ran in Life magazine in 1969, this exhibition and story would not be shining brightly today at precisely the point in history when it will do the most good.  The images would be buried in a file and forgotten.  Only a few minutes ago I received an e-mail from the wife of the boy in the striped shirt who is in a lot of the photos. So I am off to get his story now.

lotb 06.23.09 | 11:45 PM ET

Looks great - thanks for the photos.

Eva Holland 06.24.09 | 1:24 PM ET

Hi Joan - Thanks so much for stopping by! I really enjoyed the exhibit.

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.