Dick Whyte

John Cage - 4'33" [May '68 Comeback Special Edition] (2010)

6 minSingle channel / Digital Video / Colour / Sound

John Cage's 4' 33'' (1952) is a musical composition which asks the performers not to play their instrument during the entire duration of the piece throughout it's three movements. Although commonly perceived as four minutes thirty-three seconds of silence, the piece consists of the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed.

Using material from YouTube, Whyte compiles multiple performances of John Cage's seminal avant garde piece 4' 33'' into a 'supercut'.

“What interests me is that particular avant-garde works which up until a few years ago would never have been seen by the general population have suddenly become "folk" works - they are being remade and revisioned by large numbers of people, many of them who do not claim to be "artists." In a sense these works deterritorialize the category of "high-art" and reclaim these works for the people (as "folk" art).” - Dick Whyte

This work was included in Sounds Like Silence: John Cage – 4'33” – Silence Today / 1912 – 2012 (curated by Inke Arns & Dieter Daniels; Hartware Medien Kunst Verein, Dortmunder U, 2012), alongside works by Robert Rauschenberg, Nam June Paik, Einstürzende Neubauten, Yves Klein and others.

Other works by Dick Whyte

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