Dancing around the Bride: Cage, Cunningham, Johns, Rauschenberg, and Duchamp
00:00:00 - 00:00:00
.jpg)A further study of one of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA)’s greatest artistic assets—its extensive collection of works by Marcel Duchamp—Dancing around the Bride will trace the seminal artist’s influence on the dance, music, and visual artwork of four equally protean figures: composer John Cage, choreographer Merce Cunningham, and visual artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. What makes this exhibition timely is the vibrant interdisciplinary art world we find ourselves in today, and the desire of museums to show in their galleries that which had previously been inadmissible, namely the time-based practices of performance, in all its many guises. The PMA’s Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Curator of Contemporary Art Carlos Basualdo, working with the assistance of Erica Battle, Project Curatorial Assistant of Modern and Contemporary Art, will tease out specific historical encounters and explicit influences amongst these five figures, and present them in an environment that has been designed and animated by French artist Philippe Parreno. The design will include artworks, stage sets, prerecorded music and videos, as well as live performances of both music and dance, the latter two coordinated with the John Cage Trust and the Merce Cunningham Trust. In addition to publishing a 250-page reader that will include interviews, magazine articles, and book excerpts by leading scholars, critics, and the artists themselves, the PMA will also co-host a symposium on this exhibition with the art history department at the University of Pennsylvania.