#john-cage

#john-cage

In 1952, John Cage shocked audiences by staging four minutes and 33 seconds of silence. His composition 4'33" was an attempt to make nothing audible. It was inspired in part by Robert Rauschenberg's White Paintings (1951), entirely white canvasses that work as blank screens to register shifting shadows and reflections, and project them as art. 'A canvas is never empty,' says Cage, quoting Rauschenberg, and 4'33" bears that out, as random ambient sound - coughing, shifting, programmes rustling - becomes a kind of music.