John Cage: Every Day is a Good Day – the first major survey of the visual art of John Cage, in the form of an exhibition and accompanying book – was conceived, written and curated by Millar. Commissioned by Hayward Touring exhibitions, the exhibition opened at BALTIC, Gateshead (2010) and ended its six-venue tour at the Hayward Gallery, London (2011). Approximately 130,000 visitors saw the exhibition.
Whilst Cage is widely acknowledged as the central figure in the development of experimental music from the 1950s onwards, and his influence on the visual arts is well understood, his own practice as a visual artist had not previously been explored in depth. To realise this project, Millar investigated archival material and conducted interviews with a number of Cage's key collaborators, including Kathan Brown, founder-director of Crown Point Press, San Francisco; Ray Kass, artist; and Julie Lazar, curator of Cage's 1992 'Rolywholyover A Circus'.
The accompanying book contains interpretative essays by Millar; transcripts of interviews; and reprints of archival material. In addition, Millar devised the ‘Companion to Cage’ for the book, a fully cross-referenced collection of entries on Cage and his work, from ‘alphabet’ to ‘Zen’. The book introduces new and hitherto unknown material to the public, and offers new insights into the relations between Cage’s musical and visual works.
The exhibition was an experiment in method. Millar created a Cagean scheme based on chance operations. The exhibition was reviewed widely, including by the Guardian (2010): ‘Millar has tried to follow, and even extend, Cage's own vision of what an exhibition might be…[an] invitation to the participating galleries to choose rules for their version of the show and then within that structure to give in to the vagaries of chance’. Other reviews included Frieze (2010), Studio International (2011) and The Scotsman (2011).