Nick Cave Made a Soundsuit Inspired By Trayvon Martin | artnet News

Nick Cave has taken the Detroit area by storm with "Here Hear," a much-anticipated exhibition of his ornate Soundsuits and other newly-commissioned artworks at the Cranbrook Art Museum in the suburb of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The exhibition includes a variety of summer happenings like dance labs, performances, educational programs, and a forthcoming book called Greetings From Detroit. While Cave's enigmatic, otherworldly Soundsuits are as vibrant as ever, there's one that holds an especially timely message: TM 13 was created in 2015 in memory of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed Florida teenager who was fatally shot by former neighborhood watch leader George Zimmerman in 2012. The case again made national news when Zimmerman was acquitted a year later, and has remained a topic of discussion as police brutality, racial profiling, and systemic violence toward black men continues to crop up in headlines across the country. Enclosed in the woven net, the figure resembles a hunted animal that has been captured. The toe of a single sneaker pops out from beneath the covering. The title of the work refers to Martin's ...

Nick Cave Takes Detroit | Interview Magazine

Like much of America, Chicago-based artist Nick Cave watched the 1991 video of the LAPD beating Rodney King. King's mortality and fragility scared Cave so much that he immediately went to the studio and began creating a form of protection. The wearable suit of armor made of twigs marked the beginning of Cave's now-renowned series of soundsuits. Prior to the L.A. riots the artist made large-scale paintings, but since then he has become a public performer who grapples with blackness, sexuality, and the idea of one's body. This weekend, Cave embarked on a series of new performances and saw the opening of his 7,000-square foot retrospective, "Here Hear," at the museum of his alma mater, Cranbrook Academy of Art, just outside of Detroit. "The soundsuits have taken on a life of their own," Cave says of the project's 25-year duration. The bright whimsical sculptural works have grown alongside the artist's practice ...

Photo Gallery: Nick Cave ‘Here Hear’ Event at Redford Theatre and Artist Village | Detroit Free Press

Photo Gallery of 82 photos by Christopher M. Bjornberg. Artist Nick Cave's Soundsuits were a centerpiece attraction of the "Here Hear" event at Redford Theatre and Artist Village Detroit on Sunday, June 21, 2015. In conjunction with his exhibition at the Cranbrook Art Museum, Cave is hosting so-called invasion events in Detroit throughout the summer. Sunday's featured performances by the Gabriel Brass Band, Passalacqua and Tunde Olaniran.

Photo Gallery: Here Hear at the Redford Theatre | Detroit Metro Times

A gallery of 25 photos by Jeannette Fleury.

Cranbook Art Museum to Present Nick Cave’s ‘Bold, New’ HERE HEAR, 6/20 | Broadway World

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 going on June 20 through October 11, 2015. Join Detroit Public Television (DPTV) as we bring this incredible exhibit and various related events, including Cave's visit with students at the Detroit School of Arts to our viewers on-air and online. 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 ...

Colorful, sprawling Nick Cave exhibit ‘Here Hear’ opens today at Cranbrook | M Live

BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI - A months-long, expansive solo art exhibition from renowned sculptor and performance artist Nick Cave opens Saturday at the Crankbrook Art Museum. "Here Hear," a 7,000-square-foot solo exhibit, will be featured at Cranbrook until October 11. The multi-room exhibit features a big collection of Cave's famous "Soundsuits." The sewn, beaded and extravagantly decorated suits are the focus, pieces Cave said hide the artist and transmit a pure, potent message. His first Soundsuit was inspired by the Rodney King beating in the early 90s. For Cave, the suits scream out a blatant message while simultaneously covering the sender's race, gender or class. The Soundsuits are worn. Cave incorporates dance into many of his exhibits and shows, and when the Soundsuits move, the designs pop. And while the exhibit is based in the suburbs, a series of dance labs and community events will take place in Detroit throughout the summer and into the fall. On ...

10 Exhibitions Opening This Week | Mutalart.com

Nick Cave is a prolific artist and dancer, famous for his sculptures called soundsuits, which he often stages in public spectacle. The artist conceives some as fragile sculptural totems, and others as wearable performance suits designed for sound, mobility, and dance. Though influenced by a vibrant palette of African art, armor, found objects, fashion, and textile design, the origin of the soundsuit is rooted in social critique. Cave first created a suit in the aftermath of the Rodney King beating in 1991, envisioning an emotional shield that protected one’s race or gender while still expressing individuality. As Cave’s artwork began to resonate with vast audiences, the artist saw the soundsuits as powerful agents to capture the public imagination on a monumental scale. Cave’s artistic practice now advocates the vital importance of collective dreaming, which he actualizes through large-scale performances. Here Hear includes a collection of approximately thirty sculptural soundsuits in the ...

Tagged: Mutalart.com, Nick Cave

Nick Cave debuts “Here Hear” sound sculpture at Cranbrook | The Oakland Press, The Macomb Daily, The Daily Tribune

A new exhibition at Cranbrook Art Museum features a collection of more than 30 sculptural Soundsuits by Nick Cave, an artist whose reputation has steadily grown in recent years. Sometimes confused with the Australian musician who shares his name, Cave earned a graduate degree from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills in 1989. Now chairman of the Fashion Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he’s known for his elaborate costume/sculptures. Once trained as a dancer with Alvin Ailey in New York, he uses the Soundsuits in performances art pieces. Cave, who works with found objects such as discarded clothing, said the idea for his first Soundsuit came in 1991 when he was walking through a park. The Rodney King riots were on his mind as he bent down to pick up a stick. “I began to wonder what it was like to be dismissed and discarded,” Cave ...

Cranbrook Art Museum Presents “Designing Summer: Objects of Escape”

Steve Frykholm, Herman Miller Summer Picnic August 21, 1970, silkscreen with lacquer finish. Image courtesy of the artist.BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich., June 19 , 2015 – Cranbrook Art Museum is pleased to announce that the exhibition Designing Summer: Objects of Escape will open on June 20, 2015. The exhibition examines how summertime is embodied through objects of the past and present in Michigan. It will run through August 30, 2015. An exclusive ArtMembers’ reception will celebrate the opening tonight, June 19, from 6-8pm, the same evening as Nick Cave: Here Hear debuts. Memberships will be available for purchase at the door that evening. Designing Summer: Objects of Escape follows the history of people enjoying the summer months in Michigan for the past 70 years. Exclusively featuring works by Michigan designers and makers, the exhibition begins in the mid-century, at a time when a thriving automobile industry and growing middle class led to a ...

Tagged: Graphic Design, Michigan, Product Design, Shelley Selim

Black Artist News – June 19: Nick Cave, Gordon Parks, Mickalene Thomas & More | Culture Type

THE WEEK’S TOP NEWS COVERAGE from around the web featuring artists Nick Cave, Gordon Parks, Noah Purifoy, Mark Bradford, Mickalene Thomas and designer Duro Olowu. T MAGAZINE talks to Chicago-based artist Nick Cave about “Here Hear,” his first solo exhibition in Michigan at the Cranbrook Art Museum. An alumni of the Cranbrook Academy of Art, which is outside of Detroit, Cave has been staging pop-up performances around the city since April. In “Nick Cave Revisits Detroit, Soundsuits in Tow,” the artist says: “Thank God for the city. I got here and I was the sole black person, so Detroit saved my life. I became connected to this circle of creative people.”