BERLIN.- On the occasion of the 100th birthday of John Cage in 2012 the Akademie der Künste is dedicating a year-long programme to the trailblazer of an open art concept. Under the title “A Year from Monday” interdisciplinary art projects query the effect of his work up the present. The programme in autumn 2011 – “Cage Cunningham Xenakis” – describes John Cage’s cosmos through two of his most important companions and contemporaries: the choreographer and dancer Merce Cunningham and the composer and architect Iannis Xenakis. The series of projects is starting with the opening of an exhibition trilogy.

“A room for John Cage” shows Akademie members’ positions towards Cage. The exhibition follows the idea of an interactive community of production and thought, for which John Cage wanted to be a role model with his art. Installations, drawings and films by Eberhard Blum, Arnold Dreyblatt, Reinhild Hoffmann, Reinhard Jirgl with Hans-Joachim Schlieker, Hanns Schimansky, Klaus Wildenhahn can be seen.

At 88 years of age, wracked by arthritis, Merce Cunningham danced Cage’s composition 4'33" at the request of Tacita Dean. His minimalistic movements correspond with the ‘silent music’ by Cage, whose only condition was that no sound should be made. Dean documented this unusual performance by the icon of modern dance in the large scale film installation “Merce Cunningham performs STILLNESS ... (six performances, six films), 2008”.

“Controls and Coincidence – Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary” presents this Franco-Greek composer as an illustrator for the first time. Xenakis put all of his ideas onto paper first - he ‘thought’ with his hand. Through the intersection with contemporaries such as Hermann Scherchen, Richard Buckminster Fuller and Allan Kaprow, the exhibition creates new references to John Cage using the issue “Controls and Coincidence”.