John Cage's '5' Highlights Arts at AACC in Arnold

The following release was sent to Patch by Anne Arundel Community College's media relations department.

Gallery-goers will get a chance to participate with the art and the artists in the next exhibit at the Cade Center of Fine Arts Gallery at Anne Arundel Community College.

“Spin/s: a Fluxus Festival” is a multimedia visual and performing art cavalcade of exhibits, performances and events March 4-29.  Fluxus is an international avant-garde movement with roots in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s that blurs the boundaries between art and life, performer and audience, and fuses visual art, music, performance, body movement and poetry. It is alive and active as a movement today, and the AACC events will continue the probing of creative boundaries. 

“Everything in the exhibit is meant to be picked up and looked at from every angle,” said Chris P. Mona, AACC professor of visual arts who is overseeing the exhibit.

The Cade Gallery exhibit March 4–29 (gallery closed March 18 – 24) features more than 40 national contributions of 2-D and 3-D art to a Flux Box. Many of the other installations in the gallery are participatory. Gallery goers may stencil free-form poetry at of the mouth of Yoko Ono in the piece “Ono in Sono Multo Buono;” pass small objects to artist Jenny Graf Sheppard, who will be living in a tent in the gallery for a few days or take part in several performances. The exhibit also includes the Spin/s Listening Room, a Fluxus-friendly gallery lounge where visitors can play avant-garde vinyl records.

Performances March 6, at noon in the gallery feature interactive pieces by Sean Francis Conway of San Diego, Calif., Jenny Graf Sheppard of Baltimore, Chris Mona of AACC and the world-premiere of the Don’t Bring Anything Orchestra of New York City.

The major performance extravaganza is March 6, from 6 to 8 p.m. in the gallery, where visitors can join the BOMBSHELL BOOM BOOM (!) Marching Noise Band, participate in an automobile happening with Jenny Graf Sheppard, see Chris Mona play the Cade Center as an instrument and watch Lexie Mountain of Baltimore perform “Ball Hard,” while curled up in a security T-shirt.

The major musical event is March 8 at 7:30 p.m. in the Cade Center Room 224, the Recital Hall. The program includes an AACC ensemble performing John Cage’s “5,”, Jocob Polasky’s performance of his composition “Go,”  Robert Baker’s performance of work for live electronics and piano and the “no know sound band” performing with accordion, vocals and percussion.

The AACC Dance Company will perform interactions in the gallery at 11:30 a.m. on both March 7 and March 12.