Iris Garden

COMING THIS NOVEMBER

My intention in putting the stories together in an unplanned way was to suggest that all things – stories, incidental sounds from the environment, and by extension, beings – are related, and that this complexity is more evident when it is not oversimplified by an idea of relationship in one person’s mind.” – John Cage

Like a mushroom hunting trip full of unexpected pleasures, Iris Garden combines 22 of John Cage’s stories with 44 of William Gedney’s photographs (including several of the composer himself) with an ingenious design mirroring Cage’s concept of chance.

Originally published in a small print run by Alec Soth’s independent press Little Brown Mushroom in 2013, this new edition brings a rare, long out-of-print work back into circulation. Soth——widely regarded as a major voice in contemporary photography—founded his press as a space to experiment with image and text. Iris Garden reflects that spirit, uniting two artists he has deeply admired in a collaboration that feels at once intimate, open-ended, and quietly radical.

John Cage (1912–92) was one of the most influential and transformative figures in 20th-century music and art. A pioneer of chance operations, experimental composition and the use of silence—most famously in his work “4'33"”—Cage reshaped the boundaries of artistic practice, extending his ideas into writing, visual art and philosophy. 


Working largely outside the commercial mainstream and recognized more fully after his death, William Gedney (1932–89) was an American photographer who developed a lyrical documentary style shooting across the United States, from rural Kentucky to San Francisco.