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Photo Credit: David Dietrich

Artist
John Cage (Primary), Crown Point Press (Publisher), Pamela Paulson (Printer)
Title

10 Stones 2

Date
1989
Century
20th century
Medium & Support
Color spitbite aquatint and sugar-lift on smoked paper
Edition
TP B
Dimensions
Sheet: 22 1/4 x 18 1/8 in. , Image: 14 x 16 in.
Style
Abstraction
Object Type
Prints
Credit Line
Black Mountain College Collection, 2004 Collectors' Circle purchase
Accession Number
2004.24.02.63
Copyright
In Copyright
© The John Cage Trust
Description

Smoked paper with abstract circular forms in black, red, yellow and brown.

Label History

Cage taught at Black Mountain College during the 1948 and 1952 summer sessions, exploring ideas of chance operations in collaborations with Merce Cunningham and other faculty and students. A Zen Buddhist, Cage was attracted to Eastern philosophy as an alternative to predominant philosophical thinking in the Western world. He developed revolutionary aesthetics in his music compositions and art-making process, challenging what constitutes music by introducing noise, silence, and aleatory, or random, methods using the I Ching (Chinese Book of Changes). Beginning in 1978, Cage experimented with etching and monotypes for 15 years while working with Crown Point Press in San Francisco. He conducted chance operations in the Stones series, selecting and positioning small stones on a copper plate and tracing the stones with acidloaded brushes in order to create this print. The paper, later altered with smoke, contributes to the ethereal composition.

Exhibition Title: Asheville Art Museum: An Introduction to the Collection
Label Date: 2021
Type: Catalogue
Written by: Lei Han

Keywords

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