In autumn 2012, the Museum of Contemporary Art Lyon presented an exhibition that addressed the recurring presence of the French composer and pianist Erik Satie (1866-1925) in the work of John Cage (1912-1992), an influential figure in contemporary music who was at the heart of the American avant-garde. Best known for his work on the deconstruction of structure and musical harmonies and his thinking on the idea of subjectivity in interpretation, Satie was a crucial influence for Cage.
Titled ‘Cage’s Satie: Composition for Museum’, the exhibition was conceived as a piece of music by John Cage paying homage to Erik Satie. The curator of the exhibition, Laura Kuhn, director of the John Cage Trust in New York, rose brilliantly to the challenge of exhibiting music. The works co-exist without getting in the way of each other, so that the very conception of the exhibition echoes the process of composition in which Cage was so interested. We find an open space, polished and unified, in which twenty or so chaise-longues are placed, inviting you to sit down to listen to pieces of music or watch the various videos. The sound loops respond to the video loops in a total harmony of the senses. The pieces of music written by Cage using works by Satie are in dialogue with reproductions of the scores, enlarged manuscript notes, poems and drawings by the American composer as well as videos of the choreography of Merce Cunningham. The accent is placed on the graphic aspect of the notes and scores, which become signs. Above all, it is a question of transcribing a language. Music is a language and the writing of music is a conceptualisation of sound.
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