DETROIT — The Chicago artist Nick Cave was playing Santa Claus. Mr. Cave, known for his Soundsuits, costume-like sculptures that blend movement and noise, had enormous boxes delivered last Saturday to local dancers, a choreographer and a D.J. rehearsing here. The surprise contents would inspire their dance performance a week later, as part of “Here Hear,” Mr. Cave’s four-month-long exhibition and free performance series throughout Detroit. Vibrant Soundsuits emerged from the boxes. “It’s wearable!” cried Erika Stowall, a dancer.
The Art Newspaper featured Nick Cave in their July/August 2015 edition.
Behind what appears to be a beaded net stained the color of Skittles stands a hollow figure, made distinct by the hint of a sneaker sticking out from under the obscurity. Pan up from the shoe and there's a glimpse of a hooded sweatshirt topping off the towering statue, an unmistakeable bit of clothing loaded with meaning.Titled "TM 13," the work -- shown above -- memorializes the death of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed Florida teenager who was fatally shot by former neighborhood watch leader George Zimmerman three years ago. Created by Missouri-born artist Nick Cave, the piece is currently on view at the Cranbrook Art Museum, located just outside of Detroit, Mich.
Colorful, inventive and captivating are but a few of the words to describe Nick Cave’s bold new exhibit, “Here Hear” at the Cranbrook Art Museum June 20 through October 11. Join Detroit Public Television Ch. 56 as we bring this incredible exhibit and various related events, including Cave’s visit with students at the Detroit School of […]
THIS SUMMER, MAJOR CITIES are presenting major exhibitions featuring the work of important African American artists. In greater Detroit, Nick Cave (shown above) is staging pop-up performances showcasing his mesmerizing Soundsuits in conjunction with a museum exhibition at the Cranbrook Art Museum, his first in Michigan. In New York, the Studio Museum in Harlem is mounting the first solo museum exhibition of veteran painter Stanley Whitney. Baltimore photographer Devin Allen, a novice whose image of police protests landed on the cover of Time magazine, is getting his first-ever exhibition at the city’s Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture.
Nick Cave has taken performance art to another level with his seven-month experiential “Performance Series” in Detroit, and the museum exhibition “Here Hear” at Cranbrook Art Museum, which in addition to presenting his famous Soundsuit sculptures, also serves as a living document of this ambitious project. In effect, Cave, with the cooperation of numerous other parties in Detroit, has turned the city into a living canvas. Here, we talk with Cave about his ambitious project, collective dreaming and the Cranbrook legacy.
George Nelson is considered one of the most influential figures in American design during the second half of the twentieth century. Operating from the western side of Michigan as Design Director at the Zeeland-based furniture manufacturer Herman Miller for more than twenty years, Nelson had his sights firmly focused on Cranbrook, which was also playing […]
For his first solo exhibition in Michigan, Danish ceramist Anders Ruhwald will present a series of “site-sensitive” installations in Saarinen House, the “total work of art” designed by the Finnish American architect Eliel Saarinen in 1930. Saarinen House, which Cranbrook Art Museum operates as a historic house museum, will provide the ideal backdrop for Ruhwald’s […]
CHICAGO — Until he went to art school, Nick Cave considered himself an artist first and a black artist second.Then he showed up at Cranbrook Academy of Art outside Detroit in 1986 to get his MFA and discovered he was the only minority student on campus. In an instant, his perspective fundamentally changed.“I literally was in a state of shock,” he says. “It was the first time I ever had to deal with my race and to think of myself as a black male.”As a celebrated alumni, he is returning to Cranbrook this summer and fall to rectify the isolation he felt nearly 30 years ago with hopes to inspire and influence young black artists throughout Detroit. There will be an exhibition of his work — colorful masked and wearable sculptures he calls “soundsuits” — which is serving as the first phase of a six-month series throughout the city that will involve coordination and partnerships with schools, cultural centers, dance companies, businesses and museums for performances and other events that will take place on the street, in classrooms and theaters, and along the riverfront. These are not arbitrary art events but instead will bear the signature of Cave’s work: colorful, musical, involving grand theatrical performances that address diversity through empowerment
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Read MoreNow through the fall, Detroit will become the backdrop for artist Nick Cave’s most ambitious project to date, including seven months of events and his first solo exhibition at Cranbrook Art Museum, all funded by the Knight Arts Challenge. Here Cranbrook Curator Laura Mott writes about the launch of Cave’s exhibit at the museum, including his signature embellished costumes known as Soundsuits, which will be on display through Oct. 11.Nick Cave: Here Hear lived up to its celebratory title last weekend with the exhibition opening at Cranbrook Art Museum, the launch of the publication Nick Cave: Greetings From Detroit, the film screening at the historic Redford Theatre, and performances at The Artist Village. Whew! Thanks to you Detroit, it was downright incredible.
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