Yoko Ono’s video, Four, from 1966, is a moving cubist sculpture…made out of the butts and upper thighs of her subjects. This piece is initially a little difficult to decipher, four is about the variations that occur from person to person, or from butt to butt and how versatile the human body can be. The movement of this piece is caused by the simple action of walking in place. Even though all the subjects of this video are doing the same action and all theirs backsides look similar; the subtle variations present an ever-changing sculpture. Ono uses the body as an object to create sculpture and uses video to capture the little differences in the sculptures made by the cheeks of the subjects.

The title comes form the four distinct cube shapes that create the viewing area. This work barrows from Cubist art of the early 20th century. Elements from works of Marcel Duchamp’s, Nude Descending the Stairs and Georges Braque’s, Women with a Guitar, are present in this work. The figures are broken down into the most basic of elements, only giving the minimum amount of information necessary to make the figure still recognizable as such.

Although Ono uses the human body as an object in which to create art with, not all critics agree that the body can be used in this capacity. Willoughby Sharp said: “Strictly speaking it is impossible to use the body as an object. The only case in which the body approaches the status of an object is when it becomes a corpse”. No matter what either artists believe; the live human figure may not be an object, but it is still a site to create works of art.