Five Friends: Cage, Cunningham, Rauschenberg, Johns, Twombly

Museum Brandhorst, Munich
(to August 17, 2025)

Composer John Cage (1912–1992), choreographer Merce Cunningham (1919–2009), and artists Jasper Johns (1930-), Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) and Cy Twombly (1928–2011) had a major influence on music, dance, painting, sculpture and drawing in the second half of the twentieth-century. The fellow artists were also great friends.

Presented in association with Museum Ludwig in Cologne, and curated by Achim Hochdörfer, Yilmaz Dziewior with Arthur Fink and Anna Huber, the Five Friends (Fünf Freunde) exhibition that has been showing at Munich’s Museum Brandhorst this summer brings their work together over two fascinating floors.

With over 180 works of art plus scores, stage props, costumes, photographs and archive material, the exhibition provides an insight into the friendship and work of the quintet, tracing their artistic and personal relationships, and output, from the 1940s to the 1970s.

A handy timeline that greets one on entry reveals that Cage and Cunningham first met in 1938 at Cornish School (now Cornish College of the Arts) in Seattle. Rauschenberg and Twombly met in the spring of 1951 in New York before attending Black Mountain College in North Carolina that summer, where Cunningham and Cage were on the faculty. Johns (the only one of the five still living) joined the group of friends in 1954.

The ground floor is largely given over to the three visual artists, the rooms arranged thematically, each illustrating a chapter in their work and personal relationships.

First, though, John Cage’s 1959 Lecture on Nothing, in which he discussed his ideas about silence and ‘nothing’ as it relates to music and life, delivering his lecture rhythmically, leaving silent gaps between measures to illustrate his point. Two years later, Rauschenberg and Twombly followed up with their ‘White Paintings,’ which are just that and one of which is in the exhibition, to which Cage responded with his famous 4’33”, which can be found on the exhibition’s Spotify playlist.

The exhibition shows how the artists’ personal artistic languages developed: Rauschenberg in his ‘Combines,’ a term he coined to describe the works resulting from attaching everyday found objects, including photographs, into paintings; Twombly in his graffiti-like strokes; and Johns in his flags and targets.

Looking at Johns, Rauschenberg and Twombly’s art, one cannot help but be struck by how all three were influenced greatly by political events and technological advances. The exhibition shows how Rauschenberg was obsessed by symbols of the USA and its power; how many of Johns’ works involved the American flag in some form, and how Twombly often signalled political events such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis. All three were also influenced by advances in space flight.

Some of the works also contain coded messages about the romantic relationships between Rauschenberg, Twombly and Johns (Cage and Cunningham were similarly linked), this being the only way they could be communicated given the witch-hunt on alleged communists and queer people led by Senator Joe McCarthy.

These include Rauschenberg’s Bed (1953), which he called “a bouquet of some of the most beautiful moments in bed.” One of his best-known works, it consists of a bedspread and pillow, the lower part of the latter being painted by Rauschenberg, the top part by Twombly, indicating that both were present. Johns’ paintings of targets meanwhile can easily be read as a commentary on the targeting of queer people.

Also on the ground floor is an Italian television recording of John Cage premiering Water Walk (1959) in front of a live studio audience. Cage’s music is often considered difficult to access but here he has the audience laugh out loud as he handles a toy fish, a watering can and rubber duck, knocks objects off a table causing them to crash to the floor and much more. It is very quirky and very humorous, but it also makes one look at his music in a different way.

Collaborations between the five artists are most apparent in the performances of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and to which the exhibition’s lower floor is almost entirely given over to. Founded in 1953 at Black Mountain College, Cage was the company’s musical director until his death in 1992 and also initially also its tour manager. Rauschenberg was artistic director from 1954 to 1964, and responsible for lighting, costumes, and stage sets. Johns always supported his work until the couple separated in 1961, later taking over from Rauschenberg as artistic director when the latter fell out with Cunningham on the dance company’s world tour. Johns too designed sets, most notably for Walkaround Time, a 1968 collaboration with Marcel Duchamp, and costumes.

The floor is a veritable treasure trove, the films of performance, photographs, posters and costumes, all bringing Cunningham and his choreography to vivid life. The films still hold you. Those of Cunningham himself show just what a wonderful dancer and prodigious jumper he was.

A personal favourite was Travelogue (1977) performed to Cage’s Telephones and Birds, with designs by Rauschenberg. Sure enough, the dancers seem to imitate the movements of birds: hopping, tiptoeing, jumping and letting their colourful costumes flutter like feathers.

Utterly fascinating is the lengthy 1987 film, The Collaborators, shown on a huge screen in a media room. In it, Cage, Cunningham and Rauschenberg talk about their lives and work with David Vaughan, who was archivist of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 1976 until its disbanding in 2012. Although by then there had been several rifts, the bonhomie suggests the threesome were still quite close.

Among the many interesting moments is Cunningham explaining how he realised you can make dance without relying on the music. There’s also a very funny story about the New York Fire Department turning up unexpectedly an hour before a premiere, box of matches in hand, to test Rauschenberg’s assurances that the set was fireproof. It wasn’t! No problem, though. Rauschenberg somehow quickly assembled a new set and the show started on time.

Artists frequently collaborate but the five here clearly enjoyed a very special, very close relationship. The way dance, music and design came together over such a long period is very unique. As indeed is the Five Friends exhibition.

It would be wonderful to think it could be restaged elsewhere, but the sad fact is that the works included are unlikely to be brought together again. The exhibition runs for just another two weeks. Should you be in Munich, it’s well worth a couple of hours, or more, of your time.

The exhibition has been complimented by the Festival Five Friends, which has included a wide-ranging programme of dance and music performances, films and participatory creative workshops.

It’s also accompanied by a book that examines the diverse exchange of ideas between the five artists.

Five Friends
Editors: Yilmaz Dziewior, Arthur Fink, Achim Hochdörfer
Publisher:‎ Schirmer/Mosel Verlag GmbH
332 pages
Softback
English edition: ISBN 978-3-8296-1043-8
German edition: ISBN 978-3-8296-1042-1
Available from Amazon UK and elsewhere