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Laura Kuhn (ed.): The Selected Letters of John Cage

Tim Page, New York Review of Books, 27 October 2016

THERE ARE CERTAIN creative figures whose mature works are almost tangential to their enduring artistic influence. Marcel Duchamp falls into this group, as does Andy Warhol. And so, certainly, does John Cage (1912–1992). He opened doors–floodgates, really–and dissolved definitions; if most of his own compositions now seem less interesting than the ramifications of his ideas, there can be little doubt that his oceanic spirit changed the topography.

Total word count of piece: 2451

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