Cage Unrequited is a 25-hour marathon reading of experimental composer John Cage’s influential book Silence: Lectures and Writings (1961) organized by visual artist Pope.L. The performance reimagines the book for contemporary audiences by filtering a bit of the past through the voices and attitudes of a diverse community of more than 100 invited readers from Chicago.
This program is presented in association with the exhibition The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music 1965 to Now.
Cage Unrequited was originally commissioned and premiered as part of Three Duets, Seven Variations, a special series of performances organized by Adrienne Edwards, Performa, and Thomas J. Lax, The Studio Museum in Harlem, during the Performa 13 biennial for the New York presentation of Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art at The Studio Museum in Harlem and NYU’s Grey Art Gallery. Radical Presence is curated by Valerie Cassel Oliver, Senior Curator, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.
