A recent Wall Street Journal piece on classical music addressed itself to John Cage’s “Four Minutes Thirty-Three Seconds.“ It’s tempting to suggest any review of the work should be nothing but blank paper, but you have to know what 4’33” is to get the joke. In 4’33”, a pianist walks onstage, sits down at a piano, and doesn’t play a note for four minutes, 33 seconds. Then he gets up and bows and walks offstage.

In the Journal piece, Peter Gutman asks, “Can such seemingly simplistic nonsense . . . be great art?“ He says yes. I say no.

Sure, sure, 4’33” makes the audience think about ambient sound and how silence isn’t really silent and how (as Gutmann puts it) “even abject noise entails the interrelationship of distinct tones, durations, volumes, rhythms, and timbres.“ Big whoop; five minutes in a stuck elevator will do the same thing. But when Gutmann goes on to say the work “remains ever fresh” and that “Its open design, sly humor, cosmic vision, and intimate scope ensure its timeless appeal, boundless vitality, and universal relevance,“ well, that’s where the Gutster and the Bartster politely part company.

4’33” is a gag. Like a blank piece of paper, it offers no insight; any insights elicited come from beyond the work, not within it. It requires no craft or skill. It is indistinguishable from non-art, and that makes it not-art.

(And, lest your humble servant be accused of being a philistine or a reactionary prig who hates everything after Stravinsky or something along those lines, lemme remind you of the high praise I heaped on Gavin Bryars. Put that in your smipe and poke it, music world!)

I tried this non-listening to non-music in the privacy of my home and would like to report that the compostition ( That is the way I want to spell it.) would have been much better if the time were 4’ 32”.

BTW, now that I know that R. Smith is THAT R. Smith (because of his sharing of his lovely antique machinery), I can say that when he talks about “art” or being an “artist”, he knows whereof he speaks.  Google “ABANA”.

Mr. Smith: I would love to visit your shop and see all that beautiful lineshaft machinery up close - I have dabbled (being generous with the word “dabble” here) in blacksmithing and also have some antique machinery, although of the woodworking variety.  Hit me with an e-mail - I believe we know some of the same folks in the antique tool and blacksmithing demonstration fields.

Come on, Bart.  Next, you’ll try to convince us that “Cow Eating Grass” isn’t art, either.

That’d make the framed copy in my office worthless, and my taste is too sophisticated for that possibility…

I just bought a cd of Led Zepplin tunes covered by a bluegrass band. I don’t feel qualified to comment on this subject.

I can say this, there is no relation between being an artist and creating art.

I’m with you on this one, Bart. I really, really, really, REALLY pity the fool who would sit and watch that junk for 4-minutes and 33 seconds—and then applaud, go home and rave to others about it being “deep”.

In a sense, this guy John Cage is saying that his non-playing is better than all the composers who pour their heart’n’ soul into the keys. I guess that’s supposed to be funny or something.

No worse than the kindergarten scrawls of impressionists selling for millions. Any dog could do as well with a paint brush taped to her paws. If I can’t recognize an object from the real world, made special by vibrant colors or unique presentation, it ain’t art. That includes soup cans. And the Emperor in NOT wearing clothes.

Scales would say more than silence.

I am reminded of the “art” installation at London’s Tate Britain modern art that consisted of what was, for all outward appearances, a bag of trash.  The cleaning crew came in after hours as usual, and finding a bag of trash lying about, did what they are paid to do - they threw it in the dumpster. 

The museum management was horrified the next day to discover that the bag of trash - that they had paid some absurd price for - was gone.  They paid the artist AGAIN to create and “install” another bag of trash.

Then there was the “artist” who sealed his own fecal matter in a can, and an art museum (can’t remember which one, but I’m pretty sure it was in England again) bought it after he died, for (again) some absurd price.

Oh yeah - that’s art.

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