Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 07:03:52 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: Hello?


> In the late 50's early 60's,  when it came to art making many artists
> aspired to occupy a position characterized by indifference and
> indertermancy.Indetermancy (no fixed meaning) and indifference  (a means to
> over come the notions of transcendental subjectivism associate with art)
> were represented by John Cage  (who an an extrodinary influence on this
> generation) as the means to overcome the appeal of taste and  assure  the
> self interest of art and not that of the artists.  These were the
> attitudes that were thought to guarantee that art would be art and not
> become something else. Both meaning and intentionality as wellas all other
> extra -aesthetic explanations were thought to  play into the hands of the
> critics and their middle brow audiences  who were suspected of   both
> undermining the authority of art and limiting its potential effect.

Saul, as a characterization of Cage this seems to me to be singularly 
in-apt.  In what sense was Cage concerned with the "self interest of art",
or with not playing into the hands of critics and middle-brow audiences?
And here I thought we had been married too long.

-m


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