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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Visual Art John Cage Performing 'Water Walk' on Game Show in 1960

Posted by on Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 8:49 AM

Thank you, thank you, Artforum.

 

Comments (9) RSS

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Banna 1
The best part of the video? The fact that he couldn't play his "music" as written because two stagehand unions were fighting over who has to (gets to?) plug in the radios used in the composition. So nobody got to plug them in. Cage's solution is as fittingly ridiculous as the situation.
Posted by Banna http://www.ucp.org on November 11, 2009 at 9:00 AM
2
That's great!
Posted by Regina on November 11, 2009 at 9:40 AM
FreudianShrimp 3
Three years later a very young Frank Zappa did his Dadaist bit on The Steve Allen Show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql_3LS_B4…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho37arU5-…
Posted by FreudianShrimp on November 11, 2009 at 9:46 AM
4

So John Cage smashed his instruments 4 years before The Who...
Posted by Fiddle About on November 11, 2009 at 9:52 AM
5
John Cage, simply brilliant. I give him a lot of credit for doing this, knowing that people will mock and misunderstand him.
Posted by mark on November 11, 2009 at 10:13 AM
Semi-hirsute anthropoid 6
@3: Zappa looked like a Mormon missionary. Allen was an ass.
@5: Cage probably considered the mocking misunderstanding by the audience as part of the piece.
Posted by Semi-hirsute anthropoid on November 11, 2009 at 10:32 AM
Bozeman Bill 7
I love the juxtaposition between the commercial television and the advent-garde: Zappa on Allan, Cage on What’s my Line, Iggy Pop on Diana Shore. Here is another Dan Deacon on some morning tv show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eMb_kh_g….
Posted by Bozeman Bill on November 11, 2009 at 10:55 AM
gloomy gus 8
How I love hearing Cage's mellow nelly voice. Thank you! This morning I read that his and his partner Merce Cunningham's art collection fetched higher than expected prices at Sotheby's yesterday, including double the estimate on a '53 Guston drawing, in marvelous condition thanks to being kept in a closet for years after they had a fight with the artist.
Posted by gloomy gus on November 11, 2009 at 11:29 AM
B Strand 9
This is amazing. Thx.
Posted by B Strand http://www.twitter.com/strand206 on November 11, 2009 at 1:39 PM

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