John Cage Exhibition at Kettle's Yard, Cambridge

Every Day is a Good Day

The Visual Art of JOHN CAGE

At Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge

http://www.kettlesyard.co.uk/exhibitions/cage.html

Before going to this exhibition I did not know anything about this artist/composer.  Others told me to be prepared for something strange and very random.  The pictures were hung randomly – at random heights and positions on the wall.  Some so high that you could not see them.  Some pictures were missing and there were big spaces with nothing on them.  However, I liked it.  It felt more homely, less sterile to me.

I really enjoyed this exhibition.  I found the smoked effect fascinating and rather beautiful.  The colours Cage uses were calming and a lot of his pieces had empty spaces within them – allowing them to breath in my opinion.  Pieces that initially looked very simple were produced by several different print techniques and to me seemed hugely complex.  I looked up the smoke technique on Google and this seems complicated, risky with little control over the result. 

Some of his smoked pieces left me cold (Variations ll, 1991; Variations ll, 1991; Variations lll, No 18, 1992 and Variations lll, No 21, 1992 – all Smoked and branded monotype)

Some pieces – pencil on Japanese handmade paper – were so faint they were almost not there at all.

Overall I really enjoyed this exhibition.  I found the pieces simple yet complex and challenging.  The colours were calming and the compositions interesting and definitely random but that is how John Cage works.

I read the attached article following the exhibition which explained a lot of things!  http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/jul/10/john-cage-composer-drawings-exhibition