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Home>Yes No Maybe Introduction>Yes No Maybe Cage Introduction>Yes No Maybe Cage Fire

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Exhibition Introduction

Note to the ReaderAcknowledgments

IntroductionKeithJohnLeslieSelf-Portrait

IntroductionTouched RedGreenCombinationHigh Green Version 1

Introduction17 Drawings by ThoreauSeven Day Diary (Not Knowing)Changes and DisappearancesWhere R=RyoanjiFireThe Missing Stone 75 StonesEninkaStonesWhere There is Where There

IntroductionAnne ApplebyPia FriesDarren AlmondSusan MiddletonJoel FisherBrad BrownTom Marioni

IntroductionMamma AnderssonSol LeWittFred WilsonRobert BechtleKiki Smith

IntroductionJulie MehretuWayne ThiebaudJockum NordströmTomma AbtsNathan OliveiraChris Ofili

IntroductionPat SteirLaura OwensWayne ThiebaudAmy Sillman

# John Cage, Fire, 1985

John Cage, Fire, 1985
*Fire 9*1985burned, smoked, and branded Japanese papersheet: 20 1⁄4 × 11 3⁄4 (51.4 × 29.9)National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Kathan Brown,2001© John Cage Trust

*Fire 9*was made by simultaneously running burning newspaper and a damp sheet of paper through a printing press, thereby fixing a unique imprint of fire — an unpredictable, ephemeral, and volatile element. Heated teapots, their temperature and position governed by chance calculations, were then used to brand the paper with rings.

John Cage burning newspapers on the press bed at Crown Point Press, 1992, photograph by Kathan Brown, Courtesy Crown Point Press

Banner image: Detail, John Cage, *Eninka* 29, 1986, burned, smoked, and branded gampi mounted to paper, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Crown Point Press, 1996, © John Cage Trust

Next: John Cage, *The Missing Stone*, 1989

"Yes, No, Maybe: The Art of Making Decisions," lecture by exhibition curators Judith Brodie and Adam Greenhalgh (audio)Julie Mehretu, artist, in conversation with curator Judith Brodie, Diamonstein-Spielvogel lecture (audio)"An Insider's Perspective," lecture by Kathan Brown, founder of Crown Point Press (audio)

Exhibition tour by curators Judith Brodie and Adam Greenhalgh (audio)

John Cage in the collection of the National Gallery of Art

Crown Point Press prints in the collection of the National Gallery of Art

Press release

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