John Cage/Marcel Duchamp/Yoko Ono

My Art History class is proving to be challenging and really interesting.
We're learning so many compelling things about Art after the 1960s and also about the type of art that influenced it.
On Tuesday we talked about John Cage. Have you heard of him? In case you haven’t – he was a famous composer who studied Zen and Karl Jung psychology. He incorporated that into his performances, and he later inspired the US movement "The Happenings" organized by Kaprow. We reenacted one of his pieces called 4’33”. He had a famous pianist perform at Woodstock by going onto the stage, opening the piano tray and then sitting there for four minutes and thirty three seconds. Occasionally he would close the key tray and then open it again.. but that was it. It symbolized how music is everywhere and in everything. It doesn’t have to be composed. It can be someone’s breathing or shuffling around in their chair, etc.We did a shortened version of that and it was really cool. All the noises felt heightened.
We also talked about Duchamp and how he changed people’s ways of viewing art too. He took a urinal and turned it 90 degrees and called that art. Very interesting way of thinking. He tried entering the piece in an Art show under a pseudonym and it went missing before the exhibit. He was furious and took his story to the paper. He explained that Art is whatever the Artist chooses it to be and that his piece had every right to be in the exhibit. It was never recovered but still managed to be effective in altering the modern definition of Art.
Also I learned that Yoko Ono is a Fluxus artist (I thought she was just married to a Beatle). Anyway, she did a lot of really interesting performance pieces. One is called Cut Piece and she invites people in the audience to come up and cut pieces of her clothing off. When I first heard about it I thought it was really provocative and it made me uncomfortable. Very sexual. But we talked about it and watched a video clip of one of them and it was REALLY interesting. The performance is symbolic of how women have been treated throughout history. The women in the audience came up and cut little pieces off her sleeve or collar and then this one guy came up and cut her shirt off and the straps of her bra (all of this was spontaneous). It was really interesting to see the classes reaction. Plus, Yoko tried to stay as still as possible but you could tell by her eyes that she was really traumatized by his actions.
I feel like I'm already seeing Art from a different perspective and I can't wait to learn more! I'm going to the Seattle Art Museum this weekend with Logic and his sister and I look forward to seeing if I'm able to apply any of my new-found knowledge.