The Financial Times Takes a Close Look at Nick Cave’s Exhibition and Performance Series

The performance artist returns to the scene of his artistic education for a survey of his work Supported by a stack of storage boxes in Shed 5 of Detroit’s Eastern Market one humid morning, the artist Nick Cave steps gingerly into a suit of clipped twigs, one leg at a time. Crouching at his feet, two assistants adjust the jagged hem of each trouser leg while Bob Faust, Cave’s studio director and right-hand man, lifts the waist and draws the suspenders tightly across his chest. Struggling to coordinate their movements, the team of three hauls the garment’s top half — a towering assemblage of sticks weighing more than 50lb — above Cave’s head, lowering it over his face and settling it on his shoulders. Faust takes his hand and leads him outside; like a splintery Chewbacca, Cave lumbers blindly through rows of poppies to a small grove of potted pines, the ...

Arnold Blanch’s “The Hunters”

CRANBROOK SIGHTINGS: INSIDE THE VAULT Arnold Blanch The Hunters Circa 1947 Oil on canvas 30 x 48 inches Collection of Cranbrook Art Museum (CAM 1970.28) Gift of J. L. Hudson Company With summer fast approaching (though it does not always feel like it in mercurial Michigan!), it’s about time that we let ourselves take a break from our everyday lives of work and obligations to imagine ourselves in the soon-to-be summer sun, carefree and radiant. For some children, summer means boundless days, free from the shackles of oppressive homework. For others, summer is merely a lazy day on the hammock or a leisurely bike ride to the ice cream parlor. For some of us here in Michigan, summer promises treks up north, to the glistening lakes and sun-kissed days. It is truly beautiful here, whether summer or any other season, and it is this beauty that Arnold Blanch captures in his oil painting, The Hunters, which the Cranbrook ...

Tagged: Arnold Blanch, Detroit, MI, Exhibitions, Jacqueline Honet, MI, Michigan, Painting

Trippy video previews artist Nick Cave’s ‘Here Hear’ Detroit exhibit | M Live

DETROIT - An artist known for his colorful fabric "Soundsuits" will open an exhibit in Metro Detroit next week. Nick Cave, an American sculptor and performance artist, opens his five-month-long exhibit "Here Hear" at the Cranbrook Art Museum June 20. Ahead of the opening, the artist posted a trippy preview video on YouTube, showing his Soundsuits dancing -- and standing still -- at various iconic spots around Detroit. The video features some high-energy movement, as well as eerie shots near urban decay. https://youtu.be/Q4RePq2Opds His show opening in June will be his largest yet, spanning 7,000-square-feet in the museum. According to Cranbrook's website, the exhibit will feature the Soundsuits, tapestry work, sculptures and some video work. There's also a space for performance art. Cave will also be hosting events in and around Detroit throughout the summer and fall. His time in Detroit will wrap up with a a piece called "Figure This: Detroit" to be held at the Masonic ...

Vogue.com premieres new “Nick Cave: Here Hear” trailer in advance of the exhibition opening

Nick Cave is taking over Detroit. Next Saturday, June 20, will see the debut of Here Hear, the largest show of the American artist’s work to date, at the Cranbook Art Museum. The weekend will kick off a string of events that runs through the rest of the year. Among the Cave-planned celebrations are a performance called Up Right: Detroit and a series of Dance Labs, both in July; and a procession of dozens of Cave’s life-size horse sculptures traipsing through the city on September 26 (manned by high-school dancers, no less). All this will then culminate with a project called Figure This: Detroit, which will take place in the city’s magisterial Masonic Temple on October 4. As a primer for the many festivities to come, enjoy this preview of Cave’s famous Soundsuits making their way through some of Detroit’s most beautiful spaces. https://youtu.be/Q4RePq2Opds

Nick Cave’s “Here Hear” Exhibition at Cranbrook Art Museum, Detroit | HG

A new exhibition at the Cranbrook Art Museum, Detroit, casts light on the creative world of American sculptor, dancer and performance artist Nick Cave. The 7,000 square-foot solo exhibition features a large selection of Cave’s famous “Soundsuits”, a series of African-inspired colorful sculptures that merge art, fashion and sound. Standing somewhere between performative sculptures and ritual costumes, Cave’s Soundsuits are conceived as an emotional shield that protects one’s race or gender, while still allowing him to express his individuality. The exhibition, which is titled “Here Hear”, will also include newly commissioned artworks, a site-specific wall-based tapestry inspired by the artist’s childhood memories of contemplating the night sky, a series of video works and a selection of his recent sculptures. A special room, called “Map in Action”, will include video footage of the “Detroit Performance Series” that the artist will give throughout the city of Detroit during the duration of the show, ...

Top 5 Summer Shows in the US and Europe | Huffington Post

2. Nick Cave: Here Hear Cranbrook Art Museum June 20 - October 11, 2015 As buzz about Detroit becoming one of the centers of contemporary art production in the United States heightens, so does focus on its exhibitions. This may explain why rather than staging a quiet show this summer, the Cranbrook Art Museum, located in a suburb of Detroit, is making a bold statement with "Here Hear," a solo exhibition by Nick Cave. It includes programming not only at the museum itself, but also happenings throughout the city. Best known for his Soundsuits, which are wearable sculptures made out of colorful, often flamboyant materials such as feathers, knit flowers and sequins, Cave also creates a wide variety of videos and static works. Trained as dancer at Alvin Ailey, he is deliciously aware of how the body moves -- and how it can be transformed to a vessel in which a person contained ...

“Nick Cave: Here Hear” to Open at Cranbrook Art Museum on June 20

Museum Exhibition and Performance Series Run Through October Bloomfield Hills, Mich., May 28, 2015 – The stage is being set for Nick Cave’s most ambitious project to date – Nick Cave: Here Hear. The exhibition will open at Cranbrook Art Museum on Saturday, June 20, with a special ArtMembers’ Opening Reception on Friday, June 19. A media preview of the exhibition will be held on June 18 from 10am-noon. The celebration will continue through the weekend, with a special performance in Detroit’s Brightmoor and Old Redford communities on Sunday, June 21. Join us at 2pm for a screening of Cave’s video work at the historic Redford Theatre, followed by a celebration from 3-6pm at The Artist Village featuring food, music, and dancers in soundsuits – who will join the party in an impromptu flash mob. Both events are free and open to the public. The Brightmoor celebration is just one of several events ...

Tagged: Painting, Sculpture

Nick Cave is bringing his Soundsuits back to Cranbrook | Michigan Radio

Click here to hear the interview on Stateside with Cynthia Canty. Nick Cave has come home to Cranbrook. The artist, fabric sculptor, and dancer grew up in central Missouri. In 1989, Cave got a master’s degree from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills. Since then, Nick Cave has exhibited his work all over the U.S. and internationally, from New York to Denmark, Chicago to Italy. He has become famous for his sculptures called Soundsuits; some are fragile totems, while others are wildly creative performance suits designed for dance and movement. Cave works primarily with discarded materials, and describes his work as “renegotiating and reintroducing [these materials] back into the world as this other sort of hybrid.” Nick Cave will soon open an exhibition of his work at the Cranbrook Art Museum. It’s part of a seven-month-long performance series he’s been doing, using Detroit as his backdrop.

Nick Cave’s ‘Here Hear’ Citywide Interactive Installation in Detroit: An Exclusive Preview | Vulture / New York Magazine SEEN

“As an art student,” says artist Nick Cave, “Detroit played a major role in my creative development.” He attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art on the outskirts of that city — graduating in 1989. While there, he took full advantage of the city’s incredible cultural heritage — from Berry Gordy’s Motown sound as well to burgeoning underground house music scene left a lasting impression. Now Cave, who is best known for his elaborately decorated, vibrantly colored “Soundsuits” and public happenings that incorporate rhythmic music and dancing, is returning to Detroit to stage"Here Hear," a seven-month-long series of performances, exhibitions, and “invasions.” For Cave, "Here Hear" aims to “jump-start” a creative renaissance happening throughout the city. What is happening in Detroit is complicated, intertwined with the fear that new people will bring gentrification, alienating and pricing out longtime residents. By bringing art to underserved communities through a mixture of spontaneous performances — what ...

Tagged: Nick Cave, Vulture/New York Magazine SEEN

Jewelry of Harry Bertoia on display at Cranbrook | The Detroit News

Harry Bertoia was one of the towering, mid-century modernists — along with architect Eero Saarinen and furniture designers Florence Knoll and Charles and Ray Eames — who rocketed out of Cranbrook in the 1940s and revolutionized design and everyday life. The Italian-born sculptor, who died in 1978, is the subject of the new show, “Bent, Cast & Forged: The Jewelry of Harry Bertoia,” at the Cranbrook Art Museum through Nov. 29. Bertoia, who came to the Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1937 on a full scholarship, is probably most famous for his classics of modern life, the “Diamond” wire chairs produced by Knoll Associates. But he also designed the elegant metal screens at Saarinen’s GM Tech Center and the Dallas Public Library. (Dallas’ mayor at the time described the screen as “a bunch of junk painted up,” but the public came to love it.) “When you think of the mid-century ‘Mad Men’ white guys ...

Tagged: Harry Bertoia