Description

One of probably the most influential choreographers of the 20 th century, Merce Cunningham is understood for introducing likelihood to bop. A long way too continuously, alternatively, bills of Cunningham’s paintings have overlooked its complete scope, that specialize in his collaborations with the visionary composer John Cage or insisting that randomness was once the singular function of his choreography. On this e book, the primary devoted to the whole arc of Cunningham’s occupation, Carrie Noland brings new perception to this transformative artist’s philosophy and paintings, offering a contemporary standpoint on his inventive process whilst exploring facets of his choreographic observe by no means studied earlier than.
Inspecting a wealthy and in the past unseen archive that comes with pictures, movie photos, and unpublished writing by means of Cunningham, Noland counters previous understandings of Cunningham’s influential include of the unintentional, demonstrating that Cunningham in truth set limits at the function likelihood performed in his dances. Drawing on Cunningham’s written and carried out paintings, Noland finds that Cunningham offered variables earlier than the risk process was once carried out and later formed and changed the risk effects. Chapters discover his relation no longer simplest to Cage, but additionally Marcel Duchamp, Robert Rauschenberg, James Joyce, and Invoice T. Jones. In the end, Noland presentations that Cunningham approached motion as greater than “motion in itself,” and that his paintings enacted archetypal human dramas. This outstanding e book will without end amendment our appreciation of the choreographer’s paintings and legacy.