CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 3/8/2017

Merce Cunningham: Common Time Has Arrived!

Merce Cunningham: Common Time is here at last! An extraordinary book in every way, this 456-page catalog to the shows currently on view at the Walker Art Center and MCA Chicago features 400 archival images of the dances, the dancers, the collaborators, the sets, the scene, the costumes, the experiments, the ephemera, the choreography and the choreographer himself. All of the connections are drawn. Printed on numerous deluxe papers, and innovatively designed by curator Emmet Byrne and senior designer Ryan Gerald Nelson, it more than lives up to the Walker's legendary standard of book design. Scholarly essays, interviews, transcripts of conversations, and artist writings are both insightful and invaluable. Robert Rauschenberg's reflection on his 10-year period with the company expresses the joie de vivre that infuses every page: "All of us worked totally committed, shared every intense emotion, and, I think, performed miracles, for love only."