From: sgarfink (Susan Garfinkel) Subject: rolywholyover a circus To: filreis88 Date: Sat, 29 Apr 1995 11:07:07 -0400 (EDT) i picked up a flier last night about city-wide events associated with the upcoming exhibit at the philadelphia museum of art on john cage. unfortunately, it's during the summer and those of you who are going home will miss it (we know joshua is a cage fan...). the dates are june 4 - july 30. here's a blurb about the exhibit: "rolywholyover a circus is a composition for museum created by the composer, writer, philospher and visual artist jon cage (1912-1992). one of the large-scale projects that cage conceived prior to his death, rolywholyover a circus transforms the philadelphia museum of art into the setting for a constantly changing array of art, performances, film and video screenings, readings, and special programs. with many activities in the museum occurring simultaneously, as in a circus, and the location of many objects in a constant flux guided by a computerized process of random distribution, the project breaks with traditional approaches to museum exhibition programming. "the exhibition features a selection of works by artists important to cage, interactive computer installations, and relevant ephemera, all rearranged daily according to a chance-derived 'score.' cage said of the project, 'the basic idea is that the exhibition would change so much that if you came back a second time, you wouldn't recognize it.' also on view are objects from fifty philadelphia-area museums and special collections, chosen by chance procedures, as well as cage's own graphic works. "in the galleris is a media space offering live and prerecorded events throughout the run of rolywholyover a circus. cage encouraged his audience to be open to unexpected experiences, and, in keeping with this philosophy, these events at the museum will only be announced on the day of their presentation. for a daily schedule, please call the cage hotline at 215.236.cage" this sounds really exciting to me! i have a background in museum stuff, and one of the reasons i'm not actually working in the museum field at this point is the static, conservative approach to exhibition. also, i just found out last night that i'll get to do my own (small, but solo) exhibit of photography next year at the place where i've been taking photo classes. so, the timing of this with 88, my computer work for the class, my need to think about putting up an exhibit, etc., is great! therefore, a suggestion: if anyone is around this summer and interested, i'd be glad to arrange a field trip over to the museum, perhaps with a guided tour or if we're lucky, a chance to talk to someone who was involved in mounting the exhibit, or organizing the city-wide events (i can post more about those if people are interested -- there's something at easter state penitentiary that you've gotta see if you've never been there). let me know. susan
Document URL: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/cage-exhibit.html
Last modified: Wednesday, 18-Jul-2007 16:24:46 EDT