"Together they had a key shaping influence on the art of the twentieth century: musician and theorist John Cage, choreographer and dancer Merce Cunningham, and painters and sculptors Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Cy Twombly. The unique friendships connecting the five artists were marked by collaborative work, intense debate, intimate relationships, and painful separations. In their common search for new forms of expression, they addressed similar issues: technology and progress, silence and chance, tradition and radical innovation. With substantial essays, reproductions of more than 180 artworks, scores, costumes, and archival material, and many documentary photographs, this catalogue is the first publication to focus on the interdisciplinary practice of the five friends"--Publishers' information sheet, included with the shrink-wrapped book.