424 Findlay Street
Cincinnati, OH 45214
www.solwaygallery.com
513.621.0069
John Cage A Centennial Celebration (With Friends)
Opening reception: Friday, January 20, 5-8:30pm
Exhibition continues through April 20, 2012
John Cage (Yokohama, 1986)
photo credit: Akira Kinoshita, Courtesy of the John Cage Trust
John Cage A Centennial Celebration (With Friends) an exhibition of
works by John Cage including prints, drawings, multiples, and scores. With
Friends includes works by William Anastasi, Dove Bradshaw, Merce
Cunningham, Marcel Duchamp, Buckminster Fuller, Allen Ginsberg, Morris
Graves, Richard Hamilton, Al Hansen, Dick Higgins, Jasper Johns, Allan
Kaprow, Alison Knowles, Tom Marioni, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Ben
Patterson, Robert Rauschenberg, Ray Johnson, Mark Tobey, Emmett Williams
and Robert Watts.
Carl Solway Gallery celebrates its 50th Anniversary and the 100th
anniversary of John Cage’s birth with a tribute to Cage (1912-1992), the
avant-garde American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and
visual artist. In the words of Carl Solway, “No one was more influential
in helping to shape both my personal life and my professional career than
John Cage. His thinking influenced and expanded the nature of music, dance,
painting and our perception of both art and life.”
The friendship between Carl Solway and John Cage began in 1968, when he was
an artist- in- residence at the College Conservatory of Music in
Cincinnati. Their association led to the publication in 1969 of Cage’s
first visual graphic works titled Not Wanting to Say Anything About Marcel,
consisting of eight editioned sculptural objects called Plexigrams and two
lithographs. These early works, created in tribute to Marcel Duchamp
(1887-1968), are included in museums and private collections worldwide.
Throughout the remaining 23 years of his life, Cage continued to produce
prints, drawings and multiples, often incorporating the same notions of
chance and unpredictability characteristic of his revolutionary approach to
musical composition. In searching for ways to circumvent tradition and
break new ground, he often derived the elements of his pieces and their
formal compositions by consulting the I-Ching, the Chinese “Book of
Changes”, a numerical system with 64 possible outcomes. The exhibition
will include a rich array of these visual works, musical scores and
historical documents.
John Cage was born in Los Angeles in 1912. He began forging a complex
network of friends and collaborators during his early studies and musical
performances in southern California and Seattle. In Los Angeles, he
studied with composer Arnold Schoenberg and through Cornish College of the
Arts in Seattle, he became acquainted with the Northwest mystical painters
Mark Tobey (1890-1976) and Morris Graves (1910-2001). There he also met his
future life partner, the dancer and choreographer, Merce Cunningham
(1919-2009), with whom he would collaborate for decades on countless
projects.
Cage moved to New York City in 1942. He taught at Black Mountain College
in North Carolina during the summers of 1948 and 1952 where he met the
visionary designer Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983), best known as the
inventor of the geodesic dome, and the visual artists Robert Rauschenberg
(1925-2008) and Jasper Johns (1930- ). For many years, John Cage taught at
Wesleyan University in Connecticut, The New School for Social Research in
New York City and Rutgers University in New Jersey. Through his classes and
performances, he influenced and connected with artists involved in the
Fluxus movement, several of whom shared backgrounds in avant-garde music.
This loose association of playful and irreverent artists engaged in a
myriad of activities including performances, book arts, mail art and
sculpture. One of its members, Nam June Paik (1932-2006) pioneered video as
an art form. Yoko Ono (1933-), Ben Patterson (1934-), Dick Higgins
(1938-1998), Alison Knowles (1933-), Emmett Williams (1925-2007) and Robert
Watts (1923-1988) were among those associated with Fluxus.
John Cage’s many friendships and affiliations also included the British
Pop artist Richard Hamilton (1922-2011), the Beat Generation poet Allen
Ginsberg (1926-1997) and conceptual artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Tom
Marioni (1937- ), William Anastasi (1933- ) and Allan Kaprow (1927-2006).
Passions for studying Zen Buddhism, playing chess and hunting for mushrooms
informed Cage’s life throughout all of these phases. Duchamp was his
most influential chess partner, but this highly strategic game also proved
to be an important connection for Carl Solway. To quote Solway,
“Numerous times, we played chess in my gallery on Saturdays. I always
lost. John consoled me by saying that when he played with Marcel Duchamp he
always lost. Then John laughed with his famous and frequent joyous
outburst”.
Cage facilitated Carl Solway’s introduction to many innovative artists
prominent in the 1960s and 1970s. Working relationships subsequently
developed with Richard Hamilton, Buckminster Fuller, Nam June Paik, Yoko
Ono, Allan Kaprow and Ben Patterson among others.
Many of the works in this exhibition emphasize the interconnections between
Cage and friends. A healthy dose of humor distinguishes many pieces.
Among the highlights will be Marcel Duchamp’s Czech Check, circa 1964-65,
a conceptual membership card to the Czechoslovak Mycological Society of
Prague for John Cage. Mycology is the study of mushrooms. This work was
purchased by Cincinnati arts patron, Alice Weston, and first shown at the
Contemporary Arts Center in 1971. A gouache mandala by Morris Graves and a
gestural sumi ink drawing by Mark Tobey characterize the mystical artwork
influential to Cage during his formative years in Seattle. Prints from the
1960s by Robert Rauschenberg will be featured as well as a 1999 image
depicting John Cage with his Model A Ford titled John (Ruminations). It
references a legendary 1953 collaboration between Rauschenberg and Cage,
Automobile Tire Print, in which Cage drove the Model A with a paint soaked
tire over a 23-foot expanse of glued-together sheets of typing paper
prepared by Rauschenberg. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Carl Solway
Gallery collaborated with Buckminster Fuller to publish a portfolio of
prints and fabricate sculptures. A number of these works will be on view.
Nam June Paik’s video, Tribute to John Cage, will be shown in the
gallery. Another video piece, Good Morning Mr. Orwell, will be screened on
the evening of March 1 (see performance schedule below).
Cage continues to influence younger generations of artists including Dove
Bradshaw (1949- ), who was an artistic advisor to the Merce Cunningham
Dance Company. Her work incorporates the effects of time, weather and
atmospheric conditions. The exhibition will include her Radio Rocks from
1999. In this sculpture, rocks piled into cairns act as multi-directional
antennas for receiving radio transmissions.
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In addition to the exhibition, Carl Solway Gallery will host a series of
related performances.
Schedule of Thursday Evening Performances at Carl Solway Gallery
Celebrating the Cage Centennial
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Sonatas and Ryoanji Interludes
Soprano Audrey Luna and multiple pianists present pieces from Cage’s
seminal work for prepared piano connected through music he derived from his
own drawings inspired by the famous Japanese Zen rock garden.
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Thursday, February 9, 2012
Extended Lullaby
Percussion Group Cincinnati combines early turn-table classics with later
Cunningham-related pieces: Branches for amplified cactus and BeachBirds /
Extended Lullaby, using the rare music-box sculpture in the gallery’s
collection of Cage artifacts.
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Thursday, March 1, 2012
Videos by Nam June Paik, “Good Morning Mr. Orwell”, “Tribute to John
Cage”, and Cage readings from “Silence”.
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Thursday March 22, 2012
Not Wanting To Say Anything About Marcel
Bonnie Whiting Smith and Allen Otte in an evening of texted music for
speaking percussionist/pianist. Texts of Cage, Thoreau, Joyce, and others,
with Music for Marcel Duchamp as the basis of the newest piece:
“Connecting Egypt to Madison and the history of the American labor
movement”.
Free concerts begin at 7:30 pm, limited seating available. Please call
gallery for reservations at 513.621.0069
For more information or images, please contact Anita Douthat at
anita@solwaygallery.com
John Cage, 17 Drawings by Thoreau, 1978, from a series of unique color
photo-etchings
John Cage, Fontana Mix (Grey), 1981, screenprint on Arches paper, with
three Mylar templates
