I'll never forget something Robert Rauschenberg told me many years ago: "Never wait for anything." That simple phrase has profoundly shaped how I approach my life and work.
Deborah Hay is a multidisciplinary artist and is primarily known as a choreographer/performer. She performed in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in 1964 during a 6-month world tour and considers John Cage, Cunningham, and Robert Rauschenberg mentors and friends. Hay's works have been presented at institutions worldwide, including MoMA, The Getty, the Centre Pompidou, The Menil. She was awarded the Chevalier De L’ordre Des Artes Et Des Lettres from the French Government in 2015. Her archives are at the Harry Ransom Center, Austin, TX.
While globally recognized for her choreographic work, "Different Dances" presents a new series of fourteen monoprints created by Hay in 2026 at Flatbed Press. Much like her dance scores, these visual works rely on chance, spontaneous determination, and poetry. Hay captures her creative approach in her reflection below: "Coincidences, a process":
Coincidences, a process
Silhouetted figures sprawled onto thick paper waiting to be inked and pressed and inked and pressed again, and again, and again until a certain wholeness becomes itself.
Chance?
Luck?
Pre-determination?
Spontaneous determination?
Thank you, John Cage
Deborah Hay, 2026, thanks Flatbed Press and Master Printer Joshua Orsburn