BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.2.3.1//EN TZID:America/Detroit X-WR-TIMEZONE:America/Detroit BEGIN:VEVENT UID:11246@cranbrookartmuseum.org DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit:20241004T183000 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit:20241004T200000 DTSTAMP:20240911T153934Z URL:https://cranbrookartmuseum.org/events/music-mushroom-mechanisms-the-jo hn-cage-listens-to-john-cage-50th-anniversary/ SUMMARY:Music\, Mushroom\, Mechanisms: The John Cage Listens to John Cage 5 0th Anniversary DESCRIPTION:Join us for a special evening celebrating the 50th anniversary of the performance John Cage Listens to John Cage with a contemporary look at his two fascinations – music and mushrooms. The museum will be open late with a pop-up exhibition and live lecture and performance by collabor ators Dr. Timothy James\, Curator of Fungi\, University of Michigan Herbar ium\, and Detroit Bureau of Sound on mushrooms\, music and John Cage’s l egacy.  Each speaker will give a presentation on their respective experti se\, followed by a collaborative performance inspired by John Cage’s leg acy.\n\nRegister for Music\, Mushroom\, Mechanisms: The John Cage Listens to John Cage 50th Anniversary.\n\nIn 1974 John Cage visited Cranbrook Acad emy of Art at the invitation of Irwin Hollander (Head of Printmaking and A rtist-in-Residence\, 1973-76)\, the exhibition of his work Music Mushroom Manuscripts\, including The Mushroom Book was exhibited at Cranbrook Art M useum accompanied by the performance John Cage Listens to John Cage. Organ ized and conducted by the 17-year-old Zen Buddhist Stephen Tennent\, the c oncert included a suite of materials designed by the students of the Print making Department which we refer to as The Cage Bag. \n\nThe exhibition f eatures Cage’s The Mushroom Book (1972)\, documentation from John Cage L istens to John Cage including archival photos\, the original transparencie s of the chance operation carried out for the performance of Variations IV \, and other performance ephemera from the archives of conductor Stephen T ennent.  The Cage Bag with contributions by Charles Baughman (CAA MFA Pri ntmaking 1975)\, Doug Huston (CAA MFA Printmaking 1975)\, J. Kevin Byrne ( CAA MFA Design 1974)\, Jerome (Jerry) Mullane (CAA MFA Printmaking 1975)\, and others who are unnamed\, and photos from the campus visit by Judith R ich and Stephen Milanowski (CAA MFA Photography 1978). Finally\, a sample of the mushroom species Stropharia Rugoso-Annulata\, collected by John Cag e and donated to the University of Michigan Herbarium\, which is also feat ured in the Mushroom Book. \n\nThis program is accompanied by a campus-wi de mushroom hunt occurring the following day\, Saturday\, October 5 at 10a m\, which meets at the Cranbrook Institute of Science.\n\nAbout Detroit Bu reau of SoundCactus virtuoso\, composer\, and sonic evangelist\, Zac Bru a ka Detroit Bureau of Sound (DBS) is known as one of Detroit’s “most in fluential artists homing in on the craft of live performance” (CJAM 99.1 FM). Compulsively futuristic\, Zac’s influences span the past several ce nturies of musical otherness\, from Western classical traditions to the no w-global realm of electronica. DBS productions have appeared in iconic spa ces like the Detroit Opera\, Detroit Institute of Arts\, Red Bull Arts Det roit\, MoCAD\, the Michigan Science Center\, and many more - one such conc ert was described as “sounding as raw as mating bull elephants” (Lansi ng City Pulse on “X is for Xenakis”\, 2013).\n\nDBS is perhaps best kn own for playing an amplified cactus- a contact microphone on a plant\, fed into a synthesizer\; a form of music which the composer John Cage first p layed in Detroit in the 1970's\, and was reintroduced to the birthplace of techno at the 'John Cage Rave'\, Zac’s 2017 event at Red Bull Arts Detr oit\, where Juan Atkins\, himself\, was present.\n\n \;\n\nAbout Timot hy JamesTimothy Y. James is a Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biolog y at the University of Michigan\, the Curator of Fungi at the University H erbarium\, and the Lewis E. Wehmeyer and Elaine Prince Wehmeyer Chair in F ungal Taxonomy. His position as Curator of Fungi was held by Alexander Smi th\, a lauded mycologist and collaborator with John Cage on The Mushroom B ook. He received his BSc in Botany from the University of Georgia and his PhD from Duke University with Dr. Rytas Vilgalys.\n\nHis scholarship focus es on reconstructing the Fungal Tree of Life and using genomics to determi ne fungal mating systems\, ecology\, and life histories. Taxonomic foci in clude the zoosporic true fungi and other early diverging lineages of fungi \, particularly those that are unculturable. Current efforts focus on deve loping methods for single cell genomics of fungi for the exploration of fu ngal diversity and the relationship of genotype to phenotype\, mycoviruses \, and the role of mitotic recombination during clonal cycles. He has serv ed as MSA Councilor\, and on several MSA committees: Research Awards\, Stu dent Awards\, Distinctions\, and Karling Lecture. Editorial contributions include co-editing The Kingdom Fungi (ASM Press) and serving as Associate Editor for Mycologia. Additional roles include Director of the department ’s Frontiers Master’s Bridging Program\, Co-Founder and Director of th e Midwest American Mycological Information educational non-profit\, and me mber of the DOE Joint Genome Institute’s Users Executive Committee. Tim is a fellow of the American Society of Microbiology and the Canadian Insti tute for Advanced Research\, Fungal Kingdom: Threats and Opportunities.\n\ n \;\n\nAbout John Cage Listens to John Cage &\; The Cage BagIn ear ly April of 1974\, artist-composer John Cage traveled to Cranbrook to cele brate the opening of Music–Mushrooms–Manuscripts at the Art Museum\, a n exhibition of his drawings\, photographs\, books\, poems\, prints\, and sound recordings. Several featured works were printed by Irwin Hollander ( 1973-1975 head of the Cranbrook Academy of Art Printmaking department). On the evening of April 12\, Cage attended a concert of his own music organi zed by then 17-year-old conductor Stephen Tennent — aptly titled John Ca ge Listens to John Cage — performed by local professional musicians as w ell as students from the Cranbrook Upper School and neighboring Andover an d Seaholm high schools. The program featured a 40-piece ensemble of brass\ , string\, woodwind\, and non-pitched percussion instruments.\n\nIn the fa ll of 1973 Irwin Hollander met the young Zen Buddhist conductor Stephen Te nnent by chance at a gallery opening\, Tennent had been working on a prese ntation of works by John Cage and Hollander invited him to present it duri ng Cage’s visit to campus scheduled for the following spring.\n\nTennent ’s aim was to present a trilogy by John Cage that had never been perform ed publicly in its complete three-part form. At the highest level\, it was meant to be understood contextually as a serious examination of the Zen B uddhist views regarding the three separate levels of reality. Each of the three works in the trilogy was inspired by Hidekazu Yoshida’s interpreta tion of the three lines of Japanese Haiku poetry. Atlas Eclipticalis\, the first work\, represents ‘nirvana’. Variations IV\, the second work\, represents ‘samsara’- the turmoil of everyday life. 0’0” represent s one individual action\, or “dharma moment”. Prelude for Meditation w as chosen to open the performance of Cage’s trilogy presented at Cranbro ok. It demonstrates Cage’s use of prepared piano\, minimalism\, and his effective use of silence\, while emulating the three tones that precede an d follow formal Japanese zazen meditation.\n\nCage spent much of his time at Cranbrook with Irwin Hollander’s Printmaking students\, playing chess and conversing but holding no formal critiques. Spearheaded by Printmakin g students Chuck Baughman (CAA Printmaking 75) and Doug Huston (CAA Printm aking 75)\, the “Cage Bag” project accompanied the performance. A suit e of droll and imaginative prints–including a program for the concert pe rformance and limited-edition postcards–were tucked into white paper bag s silk-screened with Cage’s face. The Cage Bags were distributed to the audience on the evening of the John Cage Listens to John Cage performance\ , with the goal to have everyone in attendance wear the bags over their he ads\, creating a sea of John Cages staring back at the stage. The project was spearheaded Printmaking students by Doug Huston and Charles (Chuck) Ba ughman who created the print for the Cage Bag. While most objects included were contributed by individual Academy students we do not have a record o f all of the contributors.\n\nCharles Baughman (CAA MFA Printmaking 1975) created the discarded print depicting Beethoven and music from his Fifth S ymphony which was presented crumpled into a ball\, as well as the envelope printed with “Concert Information” containing a print of an ear and a sheet of Beethoven’s music. Doug Huston (CAA MFA Printmaking 75) create d the set of 12 postcards (one per bag and intended to be traded) featurin g fellow student Jim Poole wearing the Cage Bag as a mask about campus and the “Inspected by” quality control labels personalized for each perso n assembling the bag. J. Kevin Byrne (CAA MFA Design 1974) contributed a t ransparent glycine envelope containing a single q-tip. Jerome (Jerry) Mull ane (CAA MFA Printmaking 1975) created the print of a caged bird\, which w as presented rolled and tied with a string. The remaining objects were pro duced collectively or the individual contributor is unknown\, they include : a color test strip\, a 3x4” carbon copy card labeled “concert piece ” with “personal” handwritten in one corner\, a xerox page of the de finitions of the word “open”\, a page of a dictionary with the definit ions of the words Mushroom and Music removed and replaced with a red stamp of each word\, and the concert program.\n\n \;\n\nAbout The Mushroom BookJohn Cage is widely recognized as one of the most influential and radi cal composers of the twentieth century\, but is lesser known for his contr ibutions to the fields of visual art and mycology. Beginning in the 1960s\ , the artist prolifically produced drawings\, etchings\, watercolors\, and prints\, all of which were informed by the same chance operations and int erpretations of Zen Buddhism that suffused his musical compositions. He wa s also an avid and abiding amateur mycologist—a practice that first piqu ed his interest after his move to the sylvan Hudson River Valley in 1954 —and along with four colleagues including Lois Long\, founded the New Yo rk Mycological Society in 1962. Cage’s passion for fungi did not operate in tandem to his artistic practice\; it was in fact an important element of his ethos—symbolically intertwined with his exploration of Zen Buddhi sm and examination of life. As a man whose perception of his own environme nt was acute and inclusive\, Cage declared\, “Nothing more than mushroom identification develops the powers of observation.”\n\nCage’s most ex traordinary artistic tribute to fungi is unquestionably the Mushroom Book\ , a collaborative work with two of his longtime colleagues in the mycologi cal field. The portfolio of ten sets of lithographs was printed in a limit ed-edition run of seventy-five copies\, and boasts beautifully executed il lustrations by fellow amateur mycologist and textile designer Lois Long\; species descriptions by renowned mycologist and University of Michigan bot any professor Dr. Alexander H. Smith (a renowned mycologist based in Ann A rbor\, coincidentally also published the book Common Edible and Poisonous Mushrooms of Southeastern Michigan with the Cranbrook Institute of Science in 1938)\; and fanciful\, hand-scrawled reflections by the artist himself \, all relating to mushrooms. Cage’s words and phrases were determined b y throwing the I-Ching\, or the Book of Changes\, an ancient Chinese text of divination with which he became acquainted in 1951 and had utilized to determine aspects of most of his compositional works ever since.\n\nEach l ithographic set is presented as a bifolium—the first page exhibits Cage ’s musings\, scattered across the surface like leaves on a forest floor. His disjointed text fragments recall personal foraying adventures\, recip es\, and quote extensively from mycological texts and individuals Cage adm ired\, especially R. Buckminster Fuller and Henry David Thoreau. When open ed\, the right side of the leaf displays Lois Long’s fanciful\, naturali stic illustrations\, with an overlay of Smith’s species descriptions pri nted on Japanese paper. Cage’s words are reproduced in legible type on t he overlay’s margins—the artist confessed that although his hand-writt en texts are difficult to read\, “this enables one\, if he wishes\, to h unt for a particular text in a given lithograph\, just as he might hunt fo r a particular mushroom\, late summer or fall\, in a forest.”\n\nThe edi tion of The Mushroom Book (2014.21) owned by CAM was acquired from the est ate of Irwin Hollander in 2014 for the exhibition My Brain is My Inkstand: Drawing as Thinking and Process (November 16\, 2023-March 30\, 2014) cura ted by Nina Samuel.\n\n \;\n\nMusic Mushrooms Mechanisms is organized by Cranbrook Art Museum and curated by Lyla Catellier\, Curator of Public Programs. The event series is presented with gratitude to Shelley Selim\, 2013-2015 Jeanne and Ralph Graham Collections Fellow\, Stephen Tennent\, C onductor\, Steve Milanowski (CAA MFA Photography 1978)\, Doug Huston (CAA MFA Printmaking 1975)\, and Chuck Baughman\, (CAA MFA Printmaking 1975) an d generously supported in part by Kelsey and Evan Ross. ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://cranbrookartmuseum.org/wp-content/upload s/2024/08/huston_cagebag002-EDIT-e1724697598787.jpg CATEGORIES:Lectures + Talks,Performance LOCATION:Cranbrook Art Museum deSalle Auditorium\, 39221 Woodward Ave.\, Bl oomfield Hills\, MI\, 48304\, United States X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=39221 Woodward Ave.\, Bloom field Hills\, MI\, 48304\, United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=100;X-TITLE=Cranbr ook Art Museum deSalle Auditorium:geo:0,0 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Detroit X-LIC-LOCATION:America/Detroit BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20240310T030000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR