Tag Archive "john-cage"

Letter from Paris: White On White

The white monochrome painting, once a joke –”cow in a snowstorm” – at other times a beacon heralding modernism (Malevich’s White on White, 1918) has carved out a serious place in the canon of aesthetics. Nearly every art movement over the last 150 years, if only a shake or a jitter, has paused long enough to produce an all-over, single-color performance. There are thousands of monochrome works dotting the history of art, pointing to a kind of serial of reduction-minded dramas. Stripped down, these works, bold in their simplicity, end up being complex philosophical constructions gesturing to a manifest aesthetic destiny.

John Cage’s Shoes–Robert Storr speaks in Paris

I think it was the 13th of August, 1992, that artist and neighbor Ray Johnson called me with the news that John Cage was dead. I know it was early in the morning, and not the day he died, the 12th, because when I went outside to get a coffee and a New York Times, Cage’s obit was fully formed, a solid page, a gray tombstone reserved only for those who have come to New York to change the world. Ray hung up and I assume spent the day dialing all sorts of people to tell them that John Cage ... More » »

An Eyefull in Old City

Rachel Perry Welty Let there be Cuties (2008) fruit stickers and archival adhesive on paper, 11″ x 11″, courtesy Gallery JoeOld City is full of interesting work at the moment. Libby’s already covered the array of artists at Gallery Joe and I second her enthusiasm although she only gave brief mention to Rachel Perry Welty’s “drawings” made from fine lines cut out of fruit stickers (which I assume are those dreadful little labels that I always peel off before putting the fruit in the bowl). They are actually collages but have the simplicity and look of effortlessness of Zen ink ... More » »