Reading Blog #2

The concept of a performance in which the audience and the setting become the performance is unique and something I am quite fond of. John Cage, throughout the article, is painted as an icon in the experimental music genre. Part of me, though, recognizes Cage's reliance on “ignoring harmony for the next fifty years” as an excuse. I believe that anyone can be an artist, but not everyone can make good art. I feel like there is an insistence in the art community to be different, or stand out. This is something that has always troubled me in the art community. Obviously there are multiple aspects of counterculture at play in art and many mediums have been used to fight back against oppression, etc. I sometimes feel, though, that the artistic community justifies poor work as being in resistance to. I personally believe this is rooted in psychology, specifically the agreeableness character trait. Those lacking agreeableness go against the grain, simply to go against the grain. Duchamp’s fountain is an example of this. Based on his catalog of work he lacked an immense amount of skill in painting, and perhaps he did not receive notoriety for any of his other pieces. This is my ill informed perspective on these artists, but I believe there are others who feel this way too. With all this being said I appreciate John Cage and some of his other work. 4 '33 is a unique way of thinking about music without necessarily promoting “counter culture.”