Xenia Cage

Xenia Cage (born Xenia Andreyevna Kashevaroff, August 15, 1913 – September 26, 1995) was an American painter, sculptor, bookbinder, conservator, and musician notable for her surrealist mobiles and artistic collaborations.[1]

Cage’s work has been described as on the “cutting edge of surrealism in sculpture” for her time.[2] From 1935 to 1945, Cage was married to the musician and composer John Cage and performed in his percussion ensemble throughout their marriage.[3] Cage is believed to have been the "female performer" who smashed a lime ricky bottle into a can of broken glass at the culmination of John Cage's Construction in Metal. [4] In 1943, Cage exhibited an abstract mobile in Peggy Guggenheim's show Exhibition by 31 Women at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The next year, Cage had a solo exhibition of her mobiles at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York.[4] Cage notably collaborated with artists Joseph Cornell and Marcel Duchamp as a bookbinder, and designed a chess table in tandem with a set created by Max Ernst.[5] Cage also worked as a conservator at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York.[5]

References

  1. ↑ "Music: Percussionist". Time. February 22, 1943. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  2. ↑ Rosemont, P. (1998). ‘’Surrealist women: An international anthology’’. Austin: University of Texas Press.
  3. ↑ Swed, Mark (September 1, 2012). "John Cage's genius an L.A. story". Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Silverman, Kenneth (2010). Begin again: A biography of John Cage. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 List, Larry. 2005. The imagery of chess revisited. New York: Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum.