摘要：How does John Cage’s conceptual work '4′33"' communicate its meaning and how can we appreciate it? In this paper, I develop two competing interpretations to tackle these questions. First, drawing on Peter Goldie and Elisabeth Schellekens’s account of conceptual art (‘conceptualism’) and on Cage’s commentary on '4′33"', I elaborate an overlooked idea that the work creates a new art form of conceptual music, which can be appreciated exclusively through the ideas it conveys. However, I argue that the conceptualist interpretation of '4′33"' does not help us understand the work’s point, because it reveals a set of inconsistent claims about music and listening. The second interpretation draws on Julian Dodd’s view that the physical medium is irreducible in appreciating conceptual artworks (‘experientialism’). I develop this view by introducing a notion of a gesture to expand on how the performance of '4′33"' contributes to its aesthetic appreciation and propose an alternative interpretation of the work’s meaning.
