Nick Cave
Nick Cave
Nick Cave
Nick Cave in his Chicago studio. Photo by Anjali Pinto.
Nick Cave’s multimedia installation Until, 2016–2017, at MASS MoCA. Photo by James Prinz, courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery.
One of seven boys growing up in Fulton, Missouri, Nick Cave sought to distinguish himself within his sports- and community-oriented family. Cave and his brother Jack started watercolor and oil painting, and building objects using discarded materials. Since then, the African American artist and dancer has achieved international acclaim for his constructions crafted from “surplus,” including mosaics, table sculptures, floral wall hangings, and notably his Soundsuits: fantastical fabric sculptures that address racial and gender expectations, and in which he often performs.
Cave studied fiber arts at the Kansas City Art Institute before receiving his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 1989. After finishing school, he became director of the fashion program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Inspired by such artists as Barkley L. Hendricks and Faith Ringgold, he’d always considered issues of racial inequality in his work. Then came the police beating of Rodney King in 1992.
While in a park reflecting on the tragedy, Cave thought about “what it feels like to be discarded, dismissed, and profiled,” he told Art21 in 2018. “I thought, the moment I step outside of the privacy of my home, I could be profiled. I’m an artist and a professor, yet I could be in a situation in which my career has no effect on what I look like and how I’m perceived.”
He picked up a twig, then more twigs, later sewing them into his first Soundsuit. Shaping it to his body, Cave realized he could wear the sculpture and, like a second skin or suit of armor, the Soundsuit concealed his race, gender, and class. The sculpture, fabricated from other found objects, also rattled and dinged when he moved. Having studied at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, he began performing in his Soundsuits at clubs. His artmaking had a new purpose.
Making today allows me to ask deep questions, to stay present and relevant in a time of need.
Nick Cave
Since then, Cave has crafted more than 500 Soundsuits. The majestic, surrealistic sculptures draw inspiration from African tribal regalia and often resemble creatures from science fiction and mythology; but their components are quotidian—plastic buttons, sequins, raffia, glitter, woven synthetic hair in fluorescent green and hot pink. The juxtaposition creates a lively tension between the familiar and the imaginary. Similarly, Cave subverts traditional definitions of art and craft with Soundsuits, which blur distinctions between sculpture, fashion, and performance while shining a light on the creativity of material reuse in craft.
Heard, a performance at the Dallas Museum of Art. Photo by James Prinz, courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery.
Soundsuit, 2013. Photo by James Prinz, courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery.
Today, Cave’s work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Detroit Institute of Arts, and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, among others. He leads the fashion, body, and garment graduate program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City. He’s fashioned Soundsuits resembling horses for 60 Alvin Ailey dancers in the performance Heard NY at Grand Central Station and has orchestrated performances for children.
His 2022 retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Nick Cave: Forothermore, included his iconic Soundsuits and the installation Spinner Forest, composed of colorful spinning mobiles, cascading from the ceiling in shapes such as bullets and tears to comment on gun violence. The retrospective then moved to New York’s Guggenheim Museum.
Cave, who was inducted into the College of Fellows in 2016, describes himself as a “messenger, artist, educator, in that order.” He’s hailed by others as a leading voice in American craft for his joyful and socially trenchant work. “Making today allows me to ask deep questions,” he says, “to stay present and relevant in a time of need. And then, out of that, we create the future.”
Read more about the other 2024 ACC Awards recipients and honorees here.
Be part of the celebration
Join us Thursday, September 19 as we celebrate and honor individuals who have dedicated their careers to craft, and who—through their work as artists, educators, mentors, curators, and advocates—have inspired and informed the field.
This article was made possible with support from the Windgate Foundation.