JEALOUS!! Tell us more!
I hope you are kidding.
Caling this art is an insult to real art.
Art is a creative process. Taking an idea from the mind to the physical world.
It is not the creation of nothing out of nothing.
If you believe it is, then I have a beautiful painting that you would like to buy. I haven’t actually painted it. It is in my mind, a creation of my imagination.
That seems to be enough for you, so send me your paypal address, and I’ll send you an invoice. I will even throw in free shipping. It will be there before you know it.
I don’t think it was art. I don’t think it was nothing.
I think it was John Cage’s joke on the classical music world.
Maybe if you come up with something original, rather than ripping off 19th century ideas, I’d be interested. Blank paintings were a thing well before 4’33’'.
Not in the least. Please go back and read Post #155. Thanks.
Ah, but it IS original!
My painting is not a blank canvas. My painting has NO canvas! I’m is just an abstract thought in my head. No canvas or frame needed!
Is that art or what?
I made the unfortunate decision to get my college degree in music. In our freshman theory seminar, the teacher introduced a student who was going to play a short piece for us. He approached the piano, and sat there in silence for 4’33". One student, sitting in the back, rose up and shouted to the teacher “this is horseshit!” and proceeded to storm out of the lecture hall.
After this…unusual experience, I finally understood what Cage was going for. His intention was to flip the traditional performance experience: the audience became the performer and the performer the audience. The disgruntled mumbles, the stifled coughs, and, forsooth, the outburst of the renounced; all became the piece.
Art, as you say, is about ideas. Ideas that often can’t be expressed in words. Cage’s artistic intent was to express the ideas elicited through silence. Against the backdrop of anticipated aural stimulation, that silence became both soothing and deafening. Where the mind wanders in such a situation–the tune your brain fabricates, the memories you recall, the awkwardness of trying to deny the awkwardness of a large crowd sitting in silence–is the very fabric of what makes art valuable. It becomes meaningful to you for your own private reasons. It can’t and shouldn’t be explicated; it was between you and the vacuum.
Yep, it’s art. Not very interesting, worthwhile, aesthetically pleasing, or original, but still art.
Well done you.
Exactly. Performance Art. Don’t make it out to be what it is not.
Yes, but it only works as performance art if it’s presented as a musical performance. Stringbean describes it well - it’s a reversal of the traditional performance roles. As such, it can only work in the context of those roles. Presented as anything other than a musical performance it loses its meaning.
I literally clapped, with my actual hands, on reading this. Well done!
To demonstrate true respect for Cage’s work, one claps using only one hand.
3’ 04" Lost in time, and lost in space . . . and meaning.
(Hey, it’s Halloween.)
Well, in the modern revival, it’s music to check your e-mails by.