CAgecircle: composition for an exhibition

A chance-determined exhibition drawing on items from nearly two dozen collections, produced in partnership with Bard College Stevenson Library

June 27–July 31, 2026

Upstate Art Weekend opening and free, immersive performance: June 27, 1pm (and broadcast live on WGXC/90.7!)

Cagecircle: Composition for an Exhibition brought together a dazzling variety of archival items—from twenty-two collections—to create an unexpected cabinet of curiosities. For this collaboration between the John Cage Trust and Bard College’s Stevenson Library, we used John Cage’s methods of chance procedures as a tool for curation. The exhibition takes inspiration from Cage’s Museumcircle, an exhibition he curated using chance procedures in 1991 for Munich’s Pinakotech de Moderne art museum as a test for his posthumously installed exhibition, Rolywholyover: A Circus.

For Museumcircle, Cage asked institutions within the vicinity of the exhibition to supply lists of representative items from their collections that they would be willing to loan. For that exhibition, nineteen institutions each provided lists of ten objects. Chance procedures were then used to select one unpredictable item from each list. The result was a “John Cage” exhibition that nonetheless had no works by Cage in it, though fully represented his creative methods. Cagecircle features items from 22 collections, including items from the John Cage Trust itself.

[image: John Cage, R/17 (Where R = Ryoanji), 1988 ©John Cage Trust

Read Sparrow’s Chronogram review of Cagecircle here

April 23

Open curatorial Workshop

Learn about how to use Cagean chance procedures and how items that appear in the final Cagecircle exhibition were chosen. Watch a video of the event below.

Saturday, June 27

Exhibition Opening & Free PerformancE

1pm — join us for the opening of Cagecircle, featuring a free, immersive realization of John Cage’s iconic “Lecture on Nothing,” performed surrounding the audience and simultaneously with a performance of Cage’s “Extended Lullaby,” along with a talk by John Cage Trust Executive Director, Jeffrey Lependorf.

Featuring:

Readers: Erica Kaufman, Phil Pardi, and George Quasha

Musicians: Haley Gillia, Michael Jones, Tony Kirk, and Juan Diego Mora Rubio

Bard Stevenson Library, 1st floor (directions at the bottom of this page)

The performance was broadcast live on Wave Farm Radio / WGXC (90.7FM)—radio for open ears! Listen to the archived broadcast below.

Cagecircle opening event: Lecture on Nothing + Extended Lullaby

Collections included in Cagecircle:

  • American Symphony Orchestra Library/TŌN

  • Architecture Department

  • Bard Alumni/ae Collection

  • Bard College Archives & Special Collections

  • Bard College Archives

  • Bard Graduate Center Study, NYC

  • Bard High School Early College, Queens

  • Bard Music Festival

  • Building & Grounds

  • CCS Bard Library & Archives

  • Center for Experimental Humanities

  • Center for Indigenous Studies 

  • Ecology Field Station 

  • Film and Electronic Arts Department

  • Fisher Studio Arts

  • Hannah Arendt Center

  • John Cage Trust

  • Montgomery Place

  • Rose Laboratories

  • Smolny Archive

  • Peter Serkin Collection

  • Photography Program Collection, Woods Studio