Merce Cunningham: Common Time | Extended Labels

Robert Rauschenberg (American, 1925-2008) Selected costumes for Antic Meet, 1958 Cotton , lace , tattooed tank tops, cotton tank hoop , wool , and parachute

The Antic Meet (see video on opposite wall) comprised ten brief comic sketches that drew on ’s early training in vaudeville and his talent for mime. Much of the satirical work’s evoked the dramatic posturing associated with Martha Graham’s work. Along with Summerspace (1958/77), also on view in this gallery, Antic Meet was developed for Cunningham’s first major residency at the prestigious American Dance Festival. Robert Rauschenberg, the then artistic director of Cunningham’s dance company, designed both the décor and costumes. Décor for Antic Meet, 1958 , tablecloth, napkin, feather- bouquet, silverware, chair with straps, wood table, and door

Rauschenberg’s and Cunningham’s interest in everyday things led to their use of simple props as décor, including a chair that Cunningham wore on his back during a duet with company member Carolyn Brown, for which she wore the lacy Victorian nightgown on view. Cunningham’s costumes also included a long, mangy raccoon , workman’s coveralls, and a sweater with four sleeves and no neckhole. The women wore lace over leotards and fluffy white dresses made from silk parachutes purchased at a military surplus store. Robert Rauschenberg Décor for Summerspace, 1958/77 Enamel on canvas

Costumes for Summerspace, 1958 Painted nylon leotards and

In 1958 the Merce Cunningham Dance Company was asked to participate in a summer residency at the prestigious American Dance Festival, which traces its roots back to 1934, when was taking hold in the United States. This represented a hard-won vote of acceptance for the five-year-old company, and in response, Cunningham developed two new : Summerspace and Antic

1

[Continued]

Meet (also on view in this exhibition). The designer for these dances was Robert Rauschenberg, the leading visual artist who had begun his relationship with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in the early 1950s. Cunningham noted in a letter to Rauschenberg that Summerspace seemed to be dealing with “people and velocities.” He wrote, “I have the feeling it’s like looking at part of an enormous landscape and you can only see the action in this particular portion of it,” concluding, “One thing I can tell you about this dance is it has no center.” From these tidbits of description, Rauschenberg designed an abstract backdrop and set of costumes, which he and his friend, fellow artist Jasper Johns, executed using Day-Glo spray paints and a stencil. No image Morton Feldman (American, 1926-87) Ixion, 1958 For chamber ensemble, two-piano version performed by John Cage and David Tudor, 20 minutes, 21 seconds

The music you are hearing is by Morton Feldman, who was commissioned by Merce Cunningham to create the score for the dance Summerspace (1958/77). Feldman was associated with the experimental New York School of composers, a group that formed around experimental composer and musician John Cage in the early 1950s. Feldman shared Cage’s interest in an indeterminate, open- form music that was not based in traditional harmonic structures. The score for Ixion indicates how many sounds should be made in a given amount of time and whether they should be played in the high or low registers of the instrument, but it leaves the choice of specific notes up to the performers, here on piano, composers John Cage and David Tudor, both long associated with the dance company. Frank Stella (American, b. 1936) Décor for Scramble, 1967 Aluminum, colored canvas covers, wood, and steel

Frank Stella’s décor for Scramble, which premiered at the 1967 Ravinia Festival, consists of six single-color canvas banners stretched between metal poles. The dancers wheeled the structures onstage at the beginning of each performance. Because the choreography comprised eighteen interchangeable sections whose order was determined by chance operations each time Scramble was performed, the panels were placed in different configurations. The arrangement on view here allowed the dancers the maximum open space onstage. This décor has been described as “one of his stripe paintings cut up

2 [Continued] and distributed in space” and, as such, is reminiscent of Stella’s early color studies. It also serves as a precursor to his Protractor series. Toshi Ichiyanagi (Japanese, b. 1933) Activities for Orchestra, 1962 Performed by David Behrman, John Cage, Malcolm Goldstein, Gordon Mumma, Max Neuhaus, and David Tudor, 24 minutes, 9 seconds

Toshi Ichiyanagi, a leading figure in the avant-garde Japanese music scene of the early 1960s, composed Activities for Orchestra as the score for the dance Scramble (1967), which featured décor by Frank Stella. Ichiyanagi had been associated with Merce Cunningham Dance Company as a musician for a number of months before being asked to write this score, which is for a combination of Western acoustic instruments and live electronics. The piece is indeterminate, that is, not played in the same determined way each time it is performed. Instead the musicians are asked to perform multiple “activities” according to cued sequences that are scrambled during each performance. Frank Stella (American, b. 1936) C Type, 1968 Acrylic on canvas

C Type represents Frank Stella’s early period immediately after he designed the décor for Scramble (on view on the adjacent wall), which premiered in 1967. These paintings feature simple geometric forms that resemble protractors, instruments for measuring angles. Stella’s work with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company on Scramble demonstrates an alignment between the two artists. Cunningham described his choreography as “what is seen is what it is,” echoing Stella’s characterization of his own work: “My painting is based on the fact that only what can be seen there is there.” Using just five colors, Stella achieved a range of depth, as he did with the six colored banners he designed for the Scramble décor. Frank Stella Anderstorp (XI, 3x-tycore), 1981 Mixed media on Tycore

Frank Stella made his name in the 1960s with minimal geometric works, such as C Type (1968), but in the following decades moved on to create vibrant, structurally intricate paintings that literally bring the image off the wall and out into space. Inspired by the shapes of

3

[Continued]

automobile racetracks, this work takes its name from the Anderstorp Racing Circuit in Sweden. The painting can also be seen as mimicking the circuitous movements of dancers across a stage. Charles Atlas (American, b. 1949) MC9, 2012 Nine-channel synchronized video installation (color, sound) 18 minutes

Charles Atlas had begun working with Merce Cunningham as a production assistant in 1974. He created MC9 as an homage to the great choreographer, whose long career as a dance revolutionary ended with his 2009 death at age ninety. Atlas’s video work with Merce and the dance company over the years led to seminal advances in the field. These pieces include collaborations in which the camera was choreographed much like the dancers it was capturing. For MC9 — which stands for “Merce Cunningham to the ninth power”—Atlas chose excerpts from more than twenty pieces made in collaboration with Cunningham, including Fractions I (1977), Locale (1979–80) and Channels/Inserts (1982) (both on view in their entirety in this exhibition), and Ocean (2010). He intermixed the dance footage with fields of solid color and inserted vintage film-leader countdowns in order to disrupt the action yet give the dynamic installation the sense of a perpetual beginning. MC9 is presented here for the first time in the United States. Robert Rauschenberg Tantric Geography décor for Travelogue, 1977 Wooden bases with wheels, chairs, metal bicycle rims, fabric sails, rope, and tin cans

Costumes for Travelogue, 1977 Fan

Robert Rauschenberg’s décor for the dance Travelogue was one of his most ambitious efforts for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Although he had resigned his position as the artistic director following a physically and emotionally draining 1964 world tour, he kept close ties with the company. Tantric Geography is larger and more complex than his earlier designs, which were portable three- dimensional, mixed media–structures or simple found objects (see the 1958 work Antic Meet, also on view in this exhibition). The changes reflect the company’s growing popularity and the larger venues they

4 [Continued]

were commanding by the mid-1970s. The title alludes to Rauschenberg’s trips to Southeast Asia and India, where he was dazzled by traditional Indian silk textiles and fascinated by Hinduism. In addition to the fabric sails, Rauschenberg used brightly colored silk for the costumes, stretching it between cane ribbing to create fanlike skirts, which the dancers opened and closed like birds displaying their feathers. Birdsong and other ambient audio were used in the accompanying music. Bruce Nauman (American, b. 1941) Décor for Tread, 1970 Six industrial fans

Merce Cunningham Dance Company artistic director Jasper Johns invited artist Bruce Nauman to create a décor for the dance Tread (1970) after having seen his interactive work Performance Corridor (1969) at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Nauman, who went on to become one of the most important sculptors of the late twentieth century, originally designed a line of ten industrial fans placed downstage and blowing outward, dramatically dividing the performance space from the audience and partially blocking the view of the dancers. The idea for the décor had its roots in Nauman’s 1965 performance as a graduate student at the University of California, Irvine. He had projected a film loop of himself performing a simple action while a fan on a lectern blew toward the viewers. Like the moving column Robert Morris designed in 1969 for Canfield (on view in this exhibition), Nauman’s décor is an example of the expanded field of choreographic sculptural practice fostered by Cunningham’s commissions. No image Christian Wolff (American, b. France, 1934) For 1, 2, or 3 People, 1964 For any instruments, performed by David Tudor on Baroque organ and live electronics 24 minutes, 59 seconds

Christian Wolff’s composition For 1, 2, or 3 People was chosen as the sound for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s 1970 production Tread. As the title suggests, the number of performers is variable, as are the instruments they play. This recording features a single musician, David Tudor, who was the dance company’s music director from 1992 to 1995. Tudor used sounds made by a Baroque organ and electronic components. A musical prodigy, Wolff was sixteen years old

5

[Continued]

when he began studying with John Cage in 1950. His compositions soon began to incorporate Cagean techniques, such as indeterminacy, silence, and unorthodox notation, as are demonstrated by this composition. Bruce Nauman Untitled, 1965 Fiberglass and polyester resin

As part of his video investigations (see works in the adjacent gallery) in the late 1960s, Bruce Nauman explored what have been dubbed wall-floor positions, which involved orienting his body in various ways to bridge the floor, upon which he could stand, kneel, sit, or lay, and the wall, against which he could lean or brace himself. This interest in the various ways to choreograph movements of the body in space translated to sculptures such as this, which touches both the floor and wall and transitions between the two. Bruce Nauman Bouncing in the Corner No. 1, 1968

Slow Angle Walk (Beckett Walk), 1968 Electronic Arts Intermix

Walk With Contrapposto, 1968 Electronic Arts Intermix

All works video (black and white, sound) 60 minutes

These videos present three of Bruce Nauman’s many experiments in recording his body moving in space. Merce Cunningham shared the artist’s interest in everyday movements, and Nauman would later provide the décor for Tread (on view in the adjacent gallery) in 1970. After creating student work in film, Nauman produced his first videotapes in 1968. The medium allowed him to more easily redo performances, if necessary, and became a major component of his influential career. For Bouncing in the Corner Nauman positioned the camera sideways. From this viewpoint he appears to be lying down, or even levitating, as he pushes himself off the wall again and again. For Slow Angle Walk (Beckett Walk) the camera was also turned on its side and recorded Nauman as he repeated a laborious sequence of movements. These movements were inspired by excerpts from plays

6 [Continued]

and novels by Samuel Beckett that describe repetitive, meaningless activities. In Walk With Contrapposto, Nauman attempts to maintain the contrapposto pose—a stance associated with classical and Renaissance sculpture in which one knee bends and the body’s weight shifts to the opposite hip—while walking down a long, narrow corridor of his own design. Robert Morris (American, b. 1931) Décor for Canfield, 1969 Painted steel, aeronautical lamps, aluminum track, and electric motor

For the dance Canfield (1969), sculptor Robert Morris designed a column fitted with airplane runway lights that moved back and forth across the width of the stage. The lights both reflected off the column and shone upstage onto a scrim—a cloth screen that appears opaque until lit from behind. The dancers were positioned between the scrim and the column, and as the latter crossed the stage, the dancers moved in and out of shadow and light. In the original production, audience members and dancers remarked that the décor created a dark, foreboding mood. This was reinforced by Pauline Oliveros’s score (available at the listening station nearby). Logistic challenges arose despite the décor’s sectional design, and it was seldom used by the touring company. It is installed here for the first time since 1972, when Canfield was last performed with the décor. Morris was invited to design the décor by Jasper Johns, the artistic director of Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 1967 to 1980. Morris had been exploring the relationship between performance and sculpture since the mid-1960s and had worked with the Judson Dance Theatre—an avant-garde New York dance collective—through his relationships with choreographer-artists Simone Forti (to whom he was married) and .

No image Pauline Oliveros (American1932-2016) In Memoriam: Nikola Tesla, Cosmic Engineer, 1969 For voices, live electronics, and acoustical-space sound activators, performed by John Cage, Gordon Mumma, Jean Rigg, and David Tudor, 9 minutes, 44 seconds (excerpt)

When commissioned by the MCDC to write the music for the dance Canfield (1969), Oliveros prepared the score as three pages of notes that instructed company musicians how to find and activate the resonant frequency—the natural frequency at which an object

7

[Continued]

vibrates—of a given performance space. If the musicians were successful, the building began to “perform” its own squeaks and groans, which were added to the mix of real-time conversations and sound tests being conducted by the musicians. Composer Oliveros, a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center, is known for her pioneering work with live and recorded electronics. The piece pays homage to an 1898 experiment by the inventor Nikola Tesla, who caused a small earthquake by activating the mechanical resonance of his New York City laboratory with an oscillator. Nam June Paik (South Korean, 1932–2006) 66-76-89, 1990 Television cabinet, thirty-two video monitors, and steel

Trained as a composer but most renowned for his pioneering work in video, Nam June Paik began, in 1963, to make what might be called prepared televisions, by using magnets and various electronic interventions to alter the television’s pictures. This piece combines the blonde wood television set from Electronic (1967) with footage from Anti-Gravity Study, a pioneering 1976 video installation created for the Walker Art Center, to form a hybrid of the two previous works. The vintage televisions feature imagery evocative of the Mississippi, which Paik shot for a 1967 exhibition about the river. Nam June Paik was an important member of Fluxus, an international group of like- minded artists, composers, and poets who wished to break through the boundaries between mediums and encourage audience involvement. He worked with Merce Cunningham in various capacities, including as a visual effects designer on Variations V (1965) and a producer on Merce by Merce by Paik (1978), a two-part video tribute to Cunningham and Marcel Duchamp (projected on the adjacent wall). Nam June Paik with Charles Atlas, Merce Cunningham, and Shigeko Kubota Merce by Merce by Paik, 1978 Video (color, sound), 28 minutes, 45 seconds

This work is Nam June Paik’s video tribute to Merce Cunningham and Marcel Duchamp, the early twentieth-century artist who embraced everyday objects as artworks with his readymades. The video consists of two parts: each was produced at a different time and later edited together to create a single work. In part one, Blue Studio: Five Segments (1975–76), Charles Atlas—Cunningham’s videographer since 1974—filmed Cunningham as he performed several short pieces

8 [Continued] choreographed for the camera. Atlas used special effects as well as mirrors to create varied backgrounds for the movement. Paik then remixed the footage, doubling and tripling Cunningham’s image. In part two, Merce and Marcel (1978), an altered audio of a rare 1964 television interview with Duchamp accompanies footage of Cunningham dancing. Overlaid on scenes of city traffic and a baby taking its tentative first steps is the question: “Is this dance?” Robert Rauschenberg Interscape Mirage décor for Interscape, 2000 Machine print on cotton muslin

Costumes for Interscape, 2000 Screen-printed unitards

The décor and costumes for Interscape were the first designs Robert Rauschenberg created for a Merce Cunningham Dance Company repertory dance since 1977. They marked his return to the fruitful relationship that had begun in the early 1950s at Black Mountain College—an experimental school in North Carolina that stressed the collaborative teaching of art and science—and continued during his years as the company’s artistic designer from 1954 to 1964. The décor and costumes he designed harken back to his screen-printed paintings of the 1960s but incorporate imagery he used in his collages of the 1990s, including animals and rural and urban settings. While his earlier designs for the company (such as for Antic Meet (1958) and Summerspace (1958), both on view in this exhibition) had challenged the dancers with three-dimensional décors or costumes that limited their movements, his designs for Interscape are two-dimensional, consistent with the artist’s interest in large-scale screen-printed images during the latter half of his career. Jasper Johns Décor for Walkaround Time, 1968/85 PVC, paint, and metal tubing

For the dance Walkaround Time, Johns looked to early 20th-century artist-provocateur Marcel Duchamp and his Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) (1915–23). Johns had succeeded Robert Rauschenberg as the Cunningham dance company’s artistic director in 1965 and saw his role more as a curator, inviting other artists to contribute ideas. In this case, Duchamp agreed to let his imagery be used for the décor, which Johns printed on seven see-

9

[Continued]

through vinyl rectangles meant to be arranged on the dance floor in different configurations, with the dancers moving among and around them. Because of their transparency, audience members not only looked at but through the objects, heightening the act of perception. These enigmatic symbols and objects from Duchamp’s magnum opus include the “bride,” the long horizontal element suspended on the right, and the chocolate grinder, which sits on the platform near the center. Even at this early date, Merce Cunningham was fascinated with technology. The dance’s title arose from an era when computers were slow, providing users “time to walk around” while awaiting their output. No image David Behrman (American, b. Austria, 1937) . . . for nearly an hour . . ., 1968 For voices and taped sound, performed by Carolyn Brown, Barbara Lloyd Dilley, Beverly Emmons, and Valda Setterfield, 3 minutes, 23 seconds

Composer David Behrman, who began working with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in 1967 as a company musician, was commissioned to write the music for Walkaround Time in 1968. The score incorporates sounds taken from field recordings of a Volkswagen Beetle on the road and his own footsteps as he walked around Niagara Falls in the winter. The sounds of this walk as well as the recording that features the voices of company dancers reading texts by Marcel Duchamp—the early twentieth-century artist provocateur whose work The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) (1915–23) provided imagery for the décor by Jasper Johns—were made in Buffalo, New York, just prior to the premiere of the dance. During the performance, the music was moved randomly around the audience via photocell distributors, which were activated by the musicians shining flashlight beams on them. Jasper Johns In Memory of My Feelings—Frank O'Hara, 1961 Oil on canvas with objects

Jasper Johns painted this somber work before serving as the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s artistic director from 1967 to 1980. It demonstrates many of the ideals and methods of Cunningham and the many creative individuals he worked with. Johns first met Cunningham through his close friend Robert Rauschenberg in the early 1960s. The work’s title is a paean to the surreal poem “In Memory of My Feelings” (first published in 1967) by leading American poet and curator Frank

10 [Continued]

O’Hara, while the work itself is rooted in the ideas and techniques of Marcel Duchamp. Although the references to Duchamp are less obvious here than in his 1968 décor for Walkaround Time (also on view in this exhibition)—which used imagery from Duchamp’s Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) (1915–23)— they can be seen in Johns’s use of everyday objects, the spoon and fork, as well as the work’s hinged assembly. Charles Atlas Locale, 1979-80, 30 minutes

Charles Atlas and Merce Cunningham Channels/Inserts, 1982, 32 minutes Both works are video (color, sound)

Locale and Channels/Inserts were both shot at Merce Cunningham’s studio, located in Westbeth, the pioneering nonprofit housing and commercial complex for artists and arts organizations in the West Village neighborhood of New York City. These works show how Cunningham adapted his studio space as a site for artistic production as well as for performance. In Locale, Cunningham and Charles Atlas, who created the installation MC9 (also on view in this exhibition), carefully planned the route that the cameras traveled. They swooped and circled around the dancers, becoming “dancers” themselves as they performed a complex choreography against a black background. Channels/Inserts was the first work of video dance Cunningham created but did not participate in, marking his transition from a leading performer into an observant director of his company members. Atlas’s camera follows the dancers as they move in groups of two or more between the Westbeth main studio, small studio, and office space. To structure the dance, Cunningham employed chance operations to decide the order in which each area would be used, whether an action would occur in more than one location at a time, and how many dancers would be involved. As the dancers moved seamlessly through the Westbeth spaces, they enacted a vocabulary of movement that Cunningham would use in video dances for the next three decades. Charles Atlas and Merce Cunningham BIPED, 2005 Video (color, sound), 48 minutes, 14 seconds

The dance BIPED, first realized in 1999, is an homage to the technological. It was choreographed using DanceForms (formerly Life

11

[Continued]

Forms) software, which allowed Merce Cunningham to create movements for the legs, arms, torso, and head independently. The décor, a projection designed by digital artists Paul Kaiser and Shelley Eshkar in collaboration with Cunningham, used motion capture to transpose seventy choreographic phrases into animated digital images. These were projected onto a scrim—a screen of cloth that appears opaque until lit from behind—at the front of the stage, along with abstract patterns of dots, lines, and clusters. The live dancers could be seen behind the scrim, creating a complex interplay of flesh and image that merged the animate and inanimate, interior and exterior. This video version of BIPED was shot by Charles Atlas, a longtime videographer for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, during a 1999 performance at La Filature in Mulhouse, France. Daniel Arsham (American, b. 1980) Pixel Cloud décor for Park Avenue Armory Events, New York City, 2011 High-density polyethylene balls, paint, and steel

Daniel Arsham was young and relatively unknown when he was asked by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company to create the décor for the final performance of their Legacy Tour, which Cunningham authorized before his death in 2009. This work was inspired by cloud forms that Arsham had photographed and enlarged, with each polyethylene ball representing an individual pixel. The décor soared high above three stages on which a series of six Events were presented in New York’s cavernous Park Avenue Armory. Merce Cunningham was accustomed to working with emerging artists; his association with Robert Rauschenberg, for example, preceded the painter’s considerable fame. Arsham, whose interests span architecture, performance, and the visual arts, had designed the décor, lighting, and costumes for the 2006 Cunningham dance eyeSpace 20’. Arsham explained Cunningham’s method: "He never knew what I was doing . . . because of the way that he worked. [The making of the dance was separated] into three components . . . the choreography, which he created; the stage design, costumes, all of the other visual elements; and the score, the music.”

12 Rei Kawakubo (Japanese, b. 1942) Costumes for Scenario, 1997 Padded skirts, shirts, tank tops, pants, , dresses, and hot pants

In 1997, Merce Cunningham asked haute-couture designer Rei Kawakubo to create costumes for his new dance, Scenario. Drawing on her so-called Quasimodo collection, Kawakubo created exaggerated curves and bulges in otherwise sleek spandex garments. The costumes arose from her close observation of everyday life—a practice she had in common with Cunningham—and mimic the shapes of people she saw on the street carrying multiple bags, often under their . Her humorously “inhuman” garments tested the dancers’ movements, just as Cunningham’s difficult choreography challenged them. On view are ten of Kawakubo’s costumes, displayed against a photomural of a brightly lit white stage similar to the one constructed for the dance.

Takehisa Kosugi (Japanese, b. 1938) WAVE Code A–Z, 1997 For electric violin and live electronics, performed by Takehisa Kosugi 14 minutes, 42 seconds (excerpt)

Wave Code A–Z, written for the dance Scenario (1997), is an improvisational work for electronic and acoustic instruments that is meant to be performed live by the composer, if feasible. Violinist and composer Takehisa Kosugi was a prominent member of the Japanese avant-garde music scene in 1962, the year he met composers and musicians David Tudor and John Cage during their concert tour of Japan. He began performing with the dance company in 1976, and in 1995 he succeeded Tudor as the company’s music director. Ernesto Neto (Brazilian, b. 1964) otheranimal décor for Views on Stage, c. 2005 Nylon, polypropylene pellets, rice, glass beads, and plastic pellets

You may move through Ernesto Neto’s décor for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s 2004 production Views on Stage as it cycles through a sequence of lights. The décor is based on his contribution to the 2001 Venice Biennial, where Neto represented his native country of Brazil. Rubberized fabric was hung loosely across the stage’s ceiling. The artist then added rice, glass beads, and plastic pellets to the fabric, stretching it into a mysterious landscape of pendulous forms. A small egg-shaped prop, which Neto dubbed the Ovaloide, was placed onstage beneath the environment. Malleable

13

[Continued]

and amoebic, otheranimal appears to be as much an organism as a décor, one that could potentially melt, drip, fall, or envelop those beneath it. On view is a scaled-down replica of otheranimal that was created for installation in galleries or small theaters. Two compositions by Cunningham’s life partner and longtime collaborator John Cage comprise the music for the dance. Isamu Noguchi (American, 1904–1988) Remembrance, 1944/82 Bronze

Isamu Noguchi became friends with visionary modern dancer Martha Graham in 1929, and provided many memorable stage settings and props for her dances. It was through his association with the Graham Company as a dancer—most famously in Appalachian Spring—that Merce Cunningham met the sculptor/designer. Noguchi’s biomorphic forms, which abstracted yet still evoked nature or functional items, such as furniture or tools, fascinated Cunningham with the contrast they made with the dancers’ moving bodies. As a result Cunningham asked Noguchi to provide décor and costumes for his 1947 The Seasons. This was one of the first instances of Cunningham’s working with a visual artist to provide elements for his dances. The work’s ambiguous evocation of plant, animal, and human forms is typical of Noguchi’s sculpture during e period he worked with both Graham and Cunningham. No image John Cage (American, 1912-92) ASLSP, 1985 For solo organ or piano, performed by Christian Wolff, 17 minutes

Music for Two, 1984 For up to seventeen performers on specified instruments or voice, performed by Audrey Riley and William Winant, 29 min, 57 sec

For the music for Views on Stage, two existing works by John Cage were used: ASLSP (as slowly and softly as possible), and Music for __. The blank is filled in with the number of musicians in a given performance—in this case, two. ASLSP begins at the start of the dance and ends after seventeen minutes, while Music for Two begins nine minutes into the dance and continues until the end of the performance.

14 Andy Warhol (American, 1928-87) Troy Diptych, 1962 Silk-screen ink on synthetic polymer paint and graphite on linen

Unlike the other visual artists in this exhibition, Andy Warhol never worked directly with Merce Cunningham and his dance company. Yet his art manifests many of the ideas and qualities that Cunningham used in his choreography and he similarly marked the people he worked with. Warhol’s method of creating paintings with the printmaking technique of silkscreen was innovative and experimental. The images have accidental or chance elements, as can be seen here in a painting of the same era as Warhol’s Silver Cloud (19680) “pillows” (on view in the adjacent gallery), which were used as the décor for Cunningham’s 1968 dance RainForest. The repetition across the canvas is a corollary to the repetition of dancers’ movements in space. Andy Warhol Silver Clouds décor for RainForest, 1968 Mylar pillows, helium, and weights

Jasper Johns Costumes for RainForest, 1968 Long-sleeve shirts, long-sleeve leotards, and footless tights [Continued] Merce Cunningham saw Andy Warhol’s installation of silver Mylar “pillows” filled with helium floating through New York’s Leo Castelli Gallery in 1966. He and Jasper Johns, who functioned as the dance company’s artistic director from 1967 to 1980, approached Warhol about using them as a stage décor for the company’s new dance RainForest. Adapted for the dance, the silver clouds created an ethereal performance environment: secured to the stage floor by fishing line, some of them bobbed and swayed overhead while others, somewhat deflated, were kicked around the stage as the performers— clad in costumes Johns designed—danced among them. The décor appeared to be a living organism, responding and mutating based on chance encounters with the dancers’ bodies and complementing the nature-based imagery embedded in the choreographic movement.

15

Merce Cunningham Untitled (Flying Bird), 2006 Ink and colored pencil on paper

Untitled (Birds), 1993 Felt-tip ink on paper

Untitled (Vulture), 2003 Colored pencil and ink on paper

Merce Cunningham’s began his habit of sketching in the 1980s by illustrating a daily journal. This aspect of his creativity remained largely unknown, however, until the book Other Animals, which selected pages from these journals and other stand-alone drawings, was published in 2002. Cunningham accurately depicted the animals he drew, but the renderings reveal a sense of humor along with a child- like expressiveness. These observations of animals going about their everyday lives, a study he had begun at the Central Park Zoo after he settled in New York in 1939, also inspired movements within his choreography. Merce Cunningham Costume for Invocation to Vahakn, 1946 Printed floor-length tunic and wool shorts

Charlotte Trowbridge (American, 1906–1995) Costume for Totem Ancestor, 1942 Wool

Merce Cunningham and Mary Outten Costume for The Monkey Dances, 1948 Wool bodysuit

These costumes were worn by Merce Cunningham during dances he choreographed for his solo performances. These early dances, which he presented in informal recitals and theater spaces throughout New York, reflect his short tenure (1939 to 1942) with the Martha Graham Dance Company—founded in 1926 by the eponymous pioneering dancer/choreographer. This company was known for its emotive, expressionistic productions and for working with artists such as Isamu Noguchi, who designed sets and props (see Noguchi’s adjacent work). Merce had moved to New York at Martha Graham’s invitation to join her company. These costumes also hint at the influence of Serge

16 [Continued]

Diaghilev’s exotic Russes—an innovative early twentieth- century ballet company based in Paris. Cunningham had attended a touring version of Ballets Russes in Seattle in 1939. Cunningham created the bicolored woolen with Mary Outten for a 1948 production of Erik Satie’s The Ruse of Medusa (1913) at Black Mountain College—an experimental school in North Carolina that stressed the collaborative teaching of art and science. Cunningham danced the role of the stuffed monkey. Later that year, he adapted the choreography and used the costume for a solo piece entitled The Monkey Dances. George Brecht (American, 1926–2008) Chair Event, 1960–63/2016 Chair, objects, and paint

George Brecht understood his event scores as tools for sharpening our perception of everyday visual experiences. By “framing” a series of simple actions or an arrangement of unaltered everyday objects, he meant to suggest that these phenomena deserve the same kind of devoted attention we usually reserve for works of art. As he wrote in his notebook in 1961, “Event scores prepare one for an event to happen in one’s own now.” Like Brecht’s other event scores, Chair Event may be realized by anyone, at any time. Specific choices about objects and their placement are left to the individual performer of each event, with one exception: Brecht preferred that the “spectral colors” called for in Chair Event be painted at the bottom of one chair leg. For him, the spectrum represented all light, the phenomenon that enables us to perceive objects. Placed at the spot where the chair meets the world around it, the spectrum serves to “soften” our understanding of objects as solid and finite. George Maciunas (American, b. Lithuania, 1931-78) Trio for Bass Sordune (C Note), Voice, Old Score, and Etuis, 1962

Trio for Ladder, Mud, and Pebbles, 1962 Both works are blueprint on paper

George Maciunas was a leading figure in the mid-twentieth-century Fluxus movement, as were many other Cunningham associates. The international group of like-minded artists, composers, and poets wished to break the boundaries between mediums and encourage audience involvement. The movement in general was greatly influenced by John Cage’s use of chance, open-endedness, and

17

[Continued]

experimentation. Although Maciunas did not study formally with Cage, the composer’s ideas were deeply influential, as can be seen in these two scores. The scores are organized by units of time and incorporate nonmusical sounds, but certain decisions, such as dynamics—how loud or soft the music should be played—are left up to the performer. Both works are scored for unusual instruments, including pebbles, mud, etuis (small ornamental boxes), and the bass sordune, a Renaissance-era wind instrument. Maciunas’s love of slapstick and humor is evident in these early works.

18