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24/9/2010

Every Day is a Good Day

Kettle's Yard, Cambridge

John Cage was one of the leading avant-garde composers of the twentieth century, most famous perhaps for his silent work of 1952, 4'33". Cage was closely connected with art and artists throughout his long career, but it was not until he was in his mid-sixties that he began to practice seriously as a visual artist himself. In the last fifteen years of his life, Cage produced over 600 prints with the Crown Point Press in San Francisco, as well as 260 drawings and watercolours. In these works he applied the same chance-determined procedures that he used in his musical compositions.

*This is the first major retrospective in the UK of the visual art of the American composer and artist John Cage *(1912--1992). The exhibition will contain over 100 drawings, prints and watercolours, including the extraordinary /Ryoanji/ series, described by the art critic David Sylvester as 'among the most beautiful prints and drawings made anywhere in the 1980s'. In these works he drew around the outlines of stones scattered (according to chance) across the paper or printing plate, in one case drawing around 3,375 stones. He also experimented with burning or soaking the paper, and applied complex, painstaking procedures at each stage of the printmaking process.

Inspired by Cage's use of chance-determined scores, the exhibition will differ markedly from a traditional exhibition. The procedure that Cage often employed, using a computer-generated random number programme similar to the Chinese oracle, the 'I Ching', has been used to determine the number of works on show, their position on the wall and how many changes may occur during the exhibition. At Kettle's Yard, the exhibition will change three times but all the works will be on display all the time. The familiar aesthetic and narrative concerns of the artist or curator will be markedly absent from the exhibition, allowing for chance encounters between works and the space they are in. Cage, who disliked linear displays, employed this method in several exhibitions, notably /Rolywholyover/, in Los Angeles in 1992, which he described as a 'composition for museum'. He said "I use chance operations instead of operating according to my likes and dislikes," thus avoiding preconceived ideas in order to be open to possibilities that he might not naturally consider.

Alongside the exhibition will be a lively programme of events, including a 'musicircus' on November 10, a series of talks on Saturdays in October dealing with some of the wide range of subjects that interested Cage, such as randomness and risk, Japanese gardens and tea-houses, board games (Cage played chess with Duchamp) and electronic music. There will also be half-term activities for families, a fungi hunt (Cage was a keen mycologist), and the UK premiere of One13, a work for cello to be played with a curved bow.

The book to accompany the exhibition is the first publication to cover all aspects of Cage's visual art, with more than sixty plates and other illustrations, and four interviews by curator Jeremy Millar with authorities on Cage's visual art work, all of whom knew him well. It also includes a substantial extract from the art critic Irving Sandler's 1966 interview with Cage, and a 'Cage Companion' of quotations and commentaries reflecting the range of his interests and concerns over sixty years, from 'Anarchy' to 'Zen'.

*John Cage: Every Day is a Good Day *has been conceived by Jeremy Millar and is organised by Hayward Touring and BALTIC with the close support and guidance of the John Cage Trust.

Following its presentation at Kettle's Yard the exhibition will tour to Huddersfield Art Gallery, the Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow and the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea.

*NB there will be an opening event - a conversation between Ray Kass, artist and founder of the Mountain Lake Workshop and Laura Kuhn Director of the John Cage Foundation* *at 5.15pm on Saturday 25 September.*

Opening Saturday 25 September 2010, 5.15pm

Kettle's Yard
Castle Street, Cambridge
Hours: Tues-Sun 11.30-5pm
Admission free

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