The anarchy of silence

John Cage and experimental art 

Blowing up the artistic conventions of his time

American composer, poet, graphic artist and essayist John Cage (1912-1992) not only changed the course of modern music and dance with his radical and experimental compositions, but also created new, conceptual horizons for artistic productions in the late 20th century. The anarchy of silence - the largest exhibition dedicated to composer John Cage since his death in 1992 – is the very first exhibition in history to place his work in the context of both music history and the history of visual and performing arts. It is a comprehensive retrospective of his work, his thoughts and his influences - influences that still make their presence felt today. 

In order to explore a composer's work from a museum for contemporary art's point of view, the exhibition uses Cage's encounters with artists as a starting point in order to parse historical opinion for his oeuvre. In a time where artists rejected expressiveness, Cage developed a neutral composition and his musical scores became a model of how to convey the creative act. When Marcel Duchamp proclaimed that 'the spectator makes a work complete' (1957), Cage launched the concept of the purposeless score as a matrix to test this idea.

The exhibition follows Cage's career in chronological order from 1930 until the late 1980s. It includes more than 200 works, including original scores, paintings, noise works, films and multimedia installations by not only John Cage himself but other artists as well, including Marcel Duchamp, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, La Monte Young, Nam June Paik and Fluxus. The retrospective, compiled by Julia Robinson in co-production with Henie Onstad Art Centre in Norway and created in MACBA Barcelona, shows John Cage to be an all-round innovator.

The anarchy of silence - John Cage and experimental art is open after Cultura Nova through to Sunday 28 November 2010.

Photo: Betty Freeman, John Cage at Harvard University, 1990, Courtesy of the John Cage Trust

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