CAgecircle: composition for an exhibition
A chance-determined exhibition drawing on items from nearly two dozen collections at Bard College, 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 brings 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
April 23
Open curatorial Workshop
Join us to learn about how to use Cagean chance procedures and be the first to know which items will appear in the final Cagecircle exhibition.
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.”
Featuring:
Readers: Erica Kaufman, Phil Pardi, and George Quasha
Musicians: Michael Jones, Dennis O’Keefe, and Juan Diego Mora Rubio
Bard Stevenson Library, 1st floor (directions at the bottom of this page)
The performance will be broadcast live on Wave Farm Radio / WGXC (90.7FM)—radio for open ears!
Directions to Stevenson Library: 1 Library Road, Annandale-on-Hudson, 12504. This will take you to a gravel road behind the library, where you can park.
From there, enter the library on the lower level (it doesn't look like a public entrance, but it is!). Then go up to the main floor using the elevator or stairs.
John Cage Trust
Montgomery Place
Rose Laboratories
Smolny Archive
Peter Serkin Collection
Photography Program Collection, Woods Studio
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