Celebrate John Cage
by L. Brandon Krall
"Not only had the music of our time ceased to resemble that of yesterday, but, moreover, the category of music itself, the definition of this art form, has been overthrown…". Daniel Charles
…the underlying principle…that music and dance could be separate enites independent and interdependent, sharing a common time…John Cage and I are involved in a process of work and activity, not in a series of finished objects… Merce Cunningham
The 10th Year Anniversary of John Cage’s death was commemorated by a participatory concert/event held at the Gary Tatintsian Gallery in Chelsea on the 21st of November_ Emanuel Pimenta, William Anastasi, Dove Bradshaw, Peter Zummo, Denardo Coleman, Joseph Baptista, Jo Locandro, Richard Mauro and others contribued performative tributes to the master’s celebration_ An exhibiton of early colorist scupture by George Sugarman lent an elegant and modern mise en scene to the event_ Anastasi enacted a ‘Drop Drawing’ wherein a pen tied to a long string is dropped repeatedly onto a sheet of paper, while seated atop a 6’ ladder wearing headphones. This activity lent a metronomic pulse to improvisations enacted by the musicians with keyboard, wind, drum and guitars and in the case of Mauro, a table full of assorted sound making props including a drill, sifter, soda cans that he crushed and neatly arrayed martini glassses that he thoughtfully smashed with a hammer_ Bradshaw, stationed at a pedestal perpetutaed her FIRE piece which involves the collection since 1976 of spent 38, 45 & 9 mm bullets from a local Police firing range .The fascinatingly deformed bullets are offered to visitors from a Fire bucket full. Bradshaw studously inscribed black velvet jewelry cases with an infinite edition number, date and signature to house the spent bullets_ Willowby Sharp seemed to be doing a newspaper tear piece and a man called Africa performed minimal art surgery on his hand with a scalpel and diamondlike stones over a piece of white fur while numerous videographers strolled about the space shooting the various activities_ An atmosphere full of subtle and liberating invention that we inherit from Cage whose spirit lives_ o
soft magnolia buds in november
poems thought not writ
thoroughness like water
_+*L. Brandon Krall
