John Cage
Variations III No. 14, 1992
Series of 57 Monotypes With Branding on Smoked Paper
Image Size: Varies: 17-1/2 -- 19-1/4 x 25-3/4 -- 26-1/4 "
Paper Size: Varies: 17-1/2 -- 19-1/4 x 25-3/4 -- 26-1/4"
Printer: Pamela Paulson
Publisher: Crown Point Press
Price: $4,000
* Edition sold out
Prices and availability subject to change
About the Variations III series:
Variations III, so named because it relates to 2 earlier Variation series Cage has made at Crown Point Press, is printed on two shades of warm grey Roma paper (originally used for Cage’s Global Village etchings of 1989).
As in the earlier Variation prints, Cage asked the printers to “smoke” the paper using the method Cage devised in 1985 at the press.
The printers set aflame a wad of newspapers and then placed dampened paper on the fire to extinguish it. The smoke and occasional burn marks is recorded differently on each sheet. Next, Cage branded the sheets with a heated circular iron ring and/or an iron bar, again using the I Ching charts to determine the number of brands and their placement.
He predetermined that the bar could be used a maximum of three times, and the ring placed on the paper flatly or on its side once each, so that at most a sheet might contain five brand marks. He also allowed for the possibility of no marks. The paper was not flattened at Cage’s request. Cage thinks of the creases as an intriguing three-dimensional element.
John Cage with Crown Point printers
There are 57 images in the series; the number was determined by the amount of paper available. The beauty of these works lies in their atmospheric quality. It is as if the artist snatched a fragment of earth or sky and fixed it on paper.
As one critic put it, “Accepting the world’s temporary flow, John Cage makes an accurate image of it.”