Pictured is one of Nick Cave‘s Soundsuits, created using found fabrics and metal and wood toys. It was on view at Columbus Museum of Art in 2024.
From the museum about the work-
Nick Cave’s Soundsuits are sculptural costumes, some of which were made to be worn, others to remain stationary. Although these suits often appear whimsical and joyful, they also respond to suffering and injustice. Cave created his first suit in response to the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers in 1991, an event that focused attention on discriminatory policing and racial profiling. Reflecting the artist’s lived experience as an African American man, the Soundsuits camouflage the wearer’s body, concealing markers of race, gender, and class.
In the Art21 video below you can see some of his Soundsuits in motion. He studied with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and that influence can be seen here as well.
Art 21-Nick Cave in Chicago- Season 8
Cave’s latest exhibition, Mammoth, recently opened at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C. and will be on view until January of 2027.
About that show from SAAM-
In Mammoth, Cave remakes the museum’s galleries into an immersive environment marked by the crafted hides and bones of mammoths, a video projection of the long-dead animals come to life, and hundreds of transformed found objects—from vintage tools to his grandmother’s thimble collection—presented like paleontological specimens on a massive light table. By showcasing the ordinary and often forgotten bits and pieces of the world we live in, Cave’s work shines light on what we value and how we make meaning together. It evokes the lives and cultures we have lost, as well as the magical possibilities of a universe created through imagination and the humblest of materials.
Focused on the fundamental connections between people and their environment, Cave asks how we can begin to make sense of our relationship with a landscape that continues to evolve. How might we adapt, persevere, even thrive? As the contemporary world increasingly challenges what it means to be human, Cave envisions a space of both grief and possibility.