The Japanese artist Yoko Ono has often declared that: “All my works are a form of wishing.” As a child in Japan, Ono would go to a temple and write out a wish on a piece of thin paper and tie it in a knot around the branch of a tree. Trees in temple courtyards were always filled with people’s wish knots, which resembled white flowers blossoming from afar. Ono has completed a number of art works on this theme including Wish Piece, 96’ in which she specifies: “Make a Wish, Write it down on a piece of paper. Fold it and tie it around a branch of a Wish Tree. Ask your friends to do the same. Keep wishing until the branches are covered with wishes.”
Magic Wish Tree is affectionately dedicated to Peggy Guggenheim. Peggy met Yoko Ono when she and John Cage visited Japan. Yoko was their cicerone, and they remained friends for the remainder of Peggy’s life.