PACKAGE FESTIVAL. 1953.  DESIGNED BY CAGE FOR AN EVENT THAT NEVER HAPPENED

NYC: “One Day Festival of the Contemporary Arts”, 1953
44 x 47cm, 1pp. Black on newsprint. Poster brochure advertising a festival concept, developed by John Cage and David Tudor, designed to feature recitals, readings, dance classes, lectures, and panel discussions. Composers, musicians, poets, and thinkers on board for the festival of “experimental” works included Cage, Tudor, Merce Cunningham, and Mary Caroline Richards. Rather than being a poster for a particular planned event, this “brochure” was designed to advertise the concept of such an event to colleges and universities. It was 1953, and Cage was meeting with a wall of rejections for grants, fellowships, and even work in animated films or as a writer for magazines. The Package Festival was as experimental as any of the composer’s work, literally an idea that Cage hoped would offer financial support not to only himself, but to the growing number of contemporaries whom we would ultimately make famous on an international scale. In his biography of Cage, Kenneth Silverman notes: “The festival offered a dance program by Cunningham, a recital of contemporary music by Tudor, and a lecture on “Artaud and New Theatre”–three programs a day for three days. Each event had its own price tag, from $750 for the dance down to $100 for the lecture. But if a client bought more than one event a discount began to operate, making the discounted cost for the entire three day festival $1250. …the Package Festival found no sponsors at the time…[and] Cage left Stony Point to concertize and lecture for two months abroad.” Folded for storage else VG+. Rare.