I stood at the entrance of the Dequindre Cut Lafayette Park overpass, a few steps away from the Mies van der Rohe Historic District where I reside. I looked over the small bridge into the Dequindre valley shortly after checking my iPhone for the time. It was 4:01 p.m. on a hot July Sunday in Detroit. A Nick Cave Soundsuit performance was set to take place in Detroit’s Dequindre Cut, a relatively new pathway where the city’s residents can run and jog at leisure. Two figures in Cave’s handmade Soundsuits galloped down one of the entry ramps onto the Dequindre Cut; one in black and one in white, dancing angelically. The materials on the Soundsuit garments were draped effortlessly — like long, and thick strands of hair — as the dancers gracefully gallop up and down in the humid summer air. A live band playing “toy pop” lead by composer ...
Read MoreDETROIT — In 1989, while a postgraduate at Cranbrook Academy of Art, Nick Cave developed the first of his Soundsuits, for which he has become world-famous — sculptural bodysuits constructed from a range of found objects, which transform the wearer into a figure both highly visible and completely obscured. The Soundsuit was a means for Cave to process the intense vulnerability he felt as a black man during the Rodney King beating, which took place the same year he graduated with his MFA from Cranbrook, which boasts a lavish and sequestered campus in the affluent and mostly white Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills. More than 25 years later, Laura Mott, curator of Contemporary Art and Design for the Cranbrook Art Museum, has collaborated with Cave to stage a monumental homecoming — a series of performances, installations, happenings, and publications collectively titled, Here Hear. In April, Cave began a series of Soundsuit photo shoots ...
Read MoreNick Cave’s solo exhibition at the Cranbrook Art Museum, “Here Hear,” highlights the range of his multidisciplinary practice, from his iconic Soundsuits to newer sculpture, and also marks the artist’s return to a city that fostered his early practice. Organized in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, the Detroit School of Arts, and other community-engaged programs at the Ruth Ellis Center and the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, the exhibition is on view through October 11, 2015. by Nick Cave, as told to Andrianna Campbell, Artforum DETROIT GAVE ME THE SOUL. It was a critical part of my education. When I was a graduate student at Cranbrook Academy, I learned so much, but it was in the house music dance community here in 1987–88 where I found myself. During undergrad, I had taken summer classes with Alvin Ailey in New York and I learned to dance. Coming from that training, I then ...
Read MoreA recent splashy headline in the New York Times style section proclaimed Detroit "the last stop on the L train." The article was one of several lifestyle dispatches the paper has published touting the economically depressed Midwestern city as a destination for young creatives disillusioned by the high rent, cramped spaces and rampant gentrification of New York neighborhoods like Bushwick, Brooklyn. "Here Hear," an exhibition of Chicago-based artist Nick Cave's work at the Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (through Oct. 11), shares the Times' optimism about Detroit's potential. Known for his vibrant aesthetic combining the disciplines of fashion, craft, performance and fine art, Cave has expanded his practice to include public engagement and performance. For the Cranbrook show, Cave has taken take the city of Detroit as his muse, creating his most ambitious series of programs to date intended to engage citizens. Rather than import change from the ...
Read MoreChicago-based artist and Cranbrook alum Nick Cave has been appearing around Detroit in his colorful soundsuits as part of his Hear Here exhibition at the Cranbrook Art Museum. The public will have a chance to see Cave's soundsuits in action during a series of live performances that will be held in and around Detroit starting this Saturday. For the performances, Cave has partnered with local dancers and musicians and given each group a "box" of supplies they will use to create a live performance. The dance labs performance schedule is below. You can also catch rehearsals at MOCAD, which are open to the public to view — check the official site for the schedule. Sunday, July 19 Starts at 4 p.m. at the Ruth Ellis Center, 77 Victor St., Highland Park. Choreographer: Marcus White. Musician: DJ John Collins. Sunday, July 26 4 p.m. at the Dequindre Cut, E. Lafayette Street & St. Aubin Street (The Dequindre Cut is a below-level greenway that ...
Read MoreOutdoor art has long flourished in Detroit. There's the most obvious: the Heidelberg Project on the east side and west-side murals in the Grand River Creative Corridor. Now those installations and others -- including free "Here Hear" shows for four months by fabric sculptor and performance artist Nick Cave of Chicago -- draw in-depth attention from Melena Ryzik of The New York Times: Outdoor art has long flourished in Detroit. There's the most obvious: the Heidelberg Project on the east side and west-side murals in the Grand River Creative Corridor. Now those installations and others -- including free "Here Hear" shows for four months by fabric sculptor and performance artist Nick Cave of Chicago -- draw in-depth attention from Melena Ryzik of The New York Times: Public art has long had a home in Detroit, with its expansive vacated spaces and ambitious class of D.I.Y. makers. But lately, the back-lot murals, pop-up sculpture parks ...
Read MoreDETROIT — 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. “Can you move?” the choreographer, Marcus White, asked Mike Springer, tall as a spruce in his raffia costume. Mr. Springer spun and jumped, releasing a wave of rustles and swishes. Mr. Cave and Mr. White’s collaboration will be staged on Sunday at the Ruth Ellis Center, which serves homeless and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. The idea, Mr. Cave said, was to get “outside of the conventional ways of how we see performance ...
Read MoreThe Art Newspaper featured Nick Cave in their July/August 2015 print edition.
Read MoreBehind 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. The sculpture echoes the artist's first "Soundsuit," a wearable work of art made in 1992 after the brutal beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles. Composed of a sheath of twigs that rustled as the wearer moved, Cave imagined the piece in a ...
Read MoreColorful, 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 Arts. The show, which is the largest of the American artist’s work to date, includes a collection of approximately 30 sculptural Soundsuits in the main gallery arranged in a dynamic vignette. It also includes a room of seven newly commissioned artworks surrounded by a new site-specific wall-based tapestry inspired by Cave’s childhood watching the night sky. An additional gallery will feature a selection of his recent sculpture work and a separate area will display the artist’s video work. Finally, the “Map in Action” room will serve as a hub for theDetroit Performance Series and display the ...
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