“Can mankind ever craft an artefact which is not a ‘work of art’?” All avant-garde movements of the twentieth century have posed this question, and preferred presenting the artist as an actor upon a stage whose ὄψις is the world itself. They deny the past, are indifferent toward the future, prioritizing the Present in order to hold up a mirror, made up of an ensemble of instantenous actions and sounds, against the contemporary individual. The thundering and mechanical modern world, where the action itself is at the apex and speed is the only virtue, has finally succeeded in building museums for its own kind of art.

American composer John Cage is one of the great movers of the contemporary world of music, and all movements of music in the twentieth century have been effected by his performances. He is a dadaist, an anarchist, anti-bourgeois, experimenting with music within the circles of minimalism and postmodernism. He does not attempt to veil the fact that he is a part of the Western musical tradition, while also attempting at self-criticism.

This paper aims to expound the development process of John Cage’s avant-garde performances and comment on his modifications of the contemporary music.

Keywords: John Cage, silence, music, performance