margaret leng tan performs cage/nam-june/fluxus

They don't call her the toy piano virtuoso for nothing. But that's not all she does. She also performed John Cage's 4'33" (four minutes and 33 seconds of silence in 3 segments for which she provided full disclosure - cautioning us that it would actually be a little longer because she was going to take a short break between each section.) While I didn't time it, I'm guessing it was about 4'44".

In a tribute to George Brecht (5 event scores) she made two impossible efforts - trying to lift Nam June' Paik's TV Bed and trying but not quite being able to sing all the notes of a very high scale.

Thanks to James Cohan Gallery for their consistently excellent exhibitions. It's the first time I've been to one of their events, and Margaret Lang Tan brought the energy of Nam June Paik's work to life.

Her finale was 0'00", specified by Cage as a "Solo To Be Performed In Any Way By Anyone: In a Feedback Situation Provided with Maximum Amplification (No Feedback), Perform a Disciplined Action." So after stamping a pile full of papers (and micing/amplifying the sound of stamping, Margaret got up and distributed a sheet to everyone in the gallery.

On the page were two excerpts, which I will randomly quote from:

"Investigators have seized £20 million worth of illegal ivory in south-east Asia in the past six weeks, including the third-largest haul of elephant tusks on record...about 37,000 African elephants are killed by poachers every year...With adult male elephant tusks weighing up to 50kg, the death of a single elephant can represent a year's income for a hunter."
--The Independent (UK) April 15, 2009.

What did the stamp read? TOY PIANOS DON'T KILL ELEPHANTS