Five Friends? Nine Friends

a black and white souvenir photo from 1958 of two white men in suits, john cage and karlheinz stockhausen, with their left arms draped over the edge of a painted cardboard picture of a junker plane, as if they're riding in an open car. the plane image is composited above a landscape photo of a ferry on the rhine, with the iconic ruins of a medieval castle on top of the famous mountain, drachenfels in the background. the whole image is blurry as if it's been copied and reprinted several times over. from october magazine, august 1997

Not only did they go back, they brought all their friends.

When I posted this 1958 souvenir photo of John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen flying over the romantische ruins of the castle at Drachenfels, I thought it’d be a stretch to make too contemporary a connection. And so I didn’t mention the landmark exhibition, Five Friends: John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly which is on right now at the Museum Brandhorst in Münich. It’s the first exhibition to look at the work of these five as a tightly interrelated group of queer artists in an intense cultural moment.

And then Bluesky blew my mind when Michael Lobel and Michael Seiwert both posted this photo:

a black and white tourist photo of nine white ppl crowded into and around a fake helicopter photo backdrop from drachenfels on the rhine in germany. inside the chopper are carolyn brown, merce cunningham, john cage, mrs stockhausen whose name i forget, david tudor, and michael von biel. underneath the helicopter, because they wouldn't fit, are steve paxton, karlheinz stockhausen, and robert rauschenberg. paxton, brown, and a couple of other folks are holding glasses of beer. this photo was taken on a world tour of merce's dance company
Inside: Carolyn Brown, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Doris Stockhausen, David Tudor, Michael von Biel; Underneath: Steve Paxton, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Robert Rauschenberg, a 1964 photo from Königswinter at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, via Museum-Brandhorst

The 1958 photo reminded Lobel that he’d seen this larger group shot in a 2016 Rauschenberg essay at Tate. Seiwert noticed it because it’s IN the Brandhorst exhibit.

Germans see this 1964 photo taken during a Merce Cunningham Dance Company world tour and are like, Mein Volks! The Tate caption incorrectly says it’s from Cologne, but it’s got Drachenfels written right on the helicopter. Seiwert points out that in 1964, Stockhausen was living near Königswinter and Bonn, the capital of West Germany, so it would have been an obvious destination for our intrepid dance troupe.

Meanwhile Jasper Johns was at home, painting.

Five Friends runs through 17 August 2025 at the Museum Brandhorst [museum-brandhorst.de]