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Exhibition Introduction

Note to the Reader
Acknowledgments

Introduction
Keith
John
Leslie
Self-Portrait

Introduction
Touched Red
Green
Combination
High Green Version 1

Introduction
17 Drawings by Thoreau
Seven Day Diary (Not Knowing)
Changes and Disappearances
Where R=Ryoanji
Fire
The Missing Stone
75 Stones
Eninka
Stones
Where There is Where There

Introduction
Anne Appleby
Pia Fries
Darren Almond
Susan Middleton
Joel Fisher
Brad Brown
Tom Marioni

Introduction
Mamma Andersson
Sol LeWitt
Fred Wilson
Robert Bechtle
Kiki Smith

Introduction
Julie Mehretu
Wayne Thiebaud
Jockum Nordström
Tomma Abts
Nathan Oliveira
Chris Ofili

Introduction
Pat Steir
Laura Owens
Wayne Thiebaud
Amy Sillman

John Cage

Yes, No, Maybe: John Cage

John Cage, Seven Day Diary (Not Knowing), 1978; 17 Drawings by Thoreau, 1978: installation view
Yes, No, Maybe: John Cage

John Cage, Seven Day Diary (Not Knowing), 1978, installation view
Yes, No, Maybe: John Cage

John Cage, Fire, 1985; 75 Stones, 1989; The Missing Stone, 1989; Where R=Ryoanji, 1983; Maps for Changes and Disappearances 32 (runs 1 – 3, 6), 1982; Changes and Disappearances, 1979–1982; Seven Day Diary (Not Knowing), 1978: installation view
Yes, No, Maybe: John Cage

John Cage, Changes and Disappearances 4, 1979; Changes and Disappearances 12, 1980; Changes and Disappearances 31, 1982; Changes and Disappearances 32, 1982: installation view, clockwise from upper left
Yes, No, Maybe: John Cage

John Cage, R 2/1 (where R=Ryoanji), 1983; (R3) (where R=Ryoanji), 1983; R3 (where R=Ryoanji), 1983; Maps for Changes and Disappearances 32 (runs 1 – 3, 6), 1982: installation view
Yes, No, Maybe: John Cage

John Cage, Fire, 1985; 75 Stones, 1989; The Missing Stone, 1989; Where R=Ryoanji, 1983: installation view
Yes, No, Maybe: John Cage

John Cage, Eninka 29, 1986; Eninka (failure proof), 1986; film by Kathan Brown documenting the printing of Eninka 29: installation view
Yes, No, Maybe: John Cage

John Cage, 10 Stones 2, 1989; 9 Stones 2, 1989; Eninka 29, 1986; Eninka (failure proof), 1986: installation view; visible in gallery beyond are Darren Almond's Fullmoon@Kitandara and Fullmoon@Rwenzori, both 2010
Yes, No, Maybe: John Cage

John Cage, Where There is Where There 5, 1987; Where There is Where There 17 / Urban Landscape, 1987, revised 1989; 10 Stones 2, 1989; 9 Stones 2, 1989: installation view
Yes, No, Maybe: John Cage

A selection of documents and objects that John Cage used to produce many of the prints on display in Yes, No, Maybe, installation view
Yes, No, Maybe: John Cage

Diagram of contents of a vitrine in Yes, No, Maybe containing select documents and objects that John Cage used to produce many of the prints on display
Cage

John Cage at Crown Point Press, Oakland, c. 1980, photograph by Kathan Brown, Courtesy Crown Point Press

John Cage (American, 1912–1992) devised an unconventional artistic approach, using chance to drive the process. His interests in Zen Buddhism, natural history, and music theory inform his print projects, but the specifics of their formal properties — color, composition, shape, among others — hinged on what Cage called chance operations. He compiled menus of options (for example, how many lines, which colors, in what positions) and used computer software to generate a random number that corresponded to a particular choice. The computer program simulated a coin-flipping method dictated by the I Ching, an ancient Chinese book of divination.

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John Cage engraving a plate for Changes
and Disappearances, 1982, photograph by
Colin McRae, Courtesy Crown Point Press

By ceding decisions about the appearance of his artworks to chance, Cage sought to avoid directly exerting his will or expressing his personal aesthetic taste. He referred to this method as nonintention. “I use chance as a discipline,” he said, “so that if you work with chance operations, you’re basically shifting . . . from the responsibility to choose . . . to the responsibility to ask.” Although he ceded formal choices to chance, he retained a degree of overall control, having established the questions as well as the parameters for potential answers. Cage’s work at Crown Point Press also demonstrates his gradual willingness to override chance decisions and more directly assert his aesthetic sensibility.

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Kathan Brown and John Cage at Crown Point Press, 1982, photograph by Colin McRae, Courtesy Crown Point Press

Banner image: Detail, John Cage, Eninka 29, 1986, burned, smoked, and branded gampi mounted to paper, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Crown Point Press, 1996, © John Cage Trust

Next: John Cage, 17 Drawings by Thoreau, 1978

"Yes, No, Maybe: The Art of Making
Decisions," lecture by exhibition curators Judith Brodie and Adam Greenhalgh (audio)

Julie Mehretu, artist, in conversation with curator Judith Brodie, Diamonstein-Spielvogel lecture (audio)

"An Insider's Perspective," lecture by Kathan Brown, founder of Crown Point Press (audio)

Exhibition tour by curators Judith Brodie and Adam Greenhalgh (audio)

John Cage in the collection of the National Gallery of Art

Crown Point Press prints in the collection of the National Gallery of Art

Press release