Memories: Nick Cave at Hirshhorn

The opening of Mammoth from Nick Cave at the Smithsonian American Art Museum during the Mardi Gras season is a timely launch for the exhibition "featuring an immersive, large-scale installation and the museum's largest-ever commission by a single artist". Influenced by the Mardi Gras Indians from New Orleans, Nick Cave's signature Soundsuits, an ongoing body of work, were created as decoys to hide identity, gender, class and race following the lynching of Rodney King in 1991 and made him famous. A few are found hidden in the show offering a reflection on lineage and American history according to the artist. Installations, sculptures, and wall pieces occupy two galleries and a large open space housing a prolific display on the third floor of the venerable institution. 

A wall text at the entrance defines the content of the show drawn from Cave's personal memories closely linked with "countless unnamed individuals" and encourages the visitors' participation. Stacks of booklets labelled "Field Guide" provide a map of the exhibition, descriptions of the works followed by pointed questions to nudge the visitors into recollecting souvenirs triggered by the display, with additional blank pages to record thoughts and emotions.

Roam (2026), a video performance projected on the four walls of the gallery features actors wearing costumes made of metal armature-skeletons covered with synthetic fur hides, long tusks, trumps and tails. A specimen is on display in the room. A lone shaggy figure lost in a white haze approaches until its fur covers the walls in a close-up to the beast. The succession of images accelerates until they become kaleidoscopic drawings. A new tribe of masked characters wearing colorful lavish clothing appears, picks up the carcasses and carries them along Lake Michigan in a long procession followed by celebratory dances. A continuous background sound of jingle accompany the  twelve-minute show about the mammoths' resurrection, a dizzying experience for the visitors surrounded by the carnivalesque crowd. In contrast, across the hall, the mortuary stillness of the room occupied by a central sculpture generates contemplation and reflection in front of the life size bodies of two males in their street clothes lying on the floor, one face up, the other face down clutching his hands behind his neck in surrender. They stay anonymous with their heads stylized as simple cones. The down cone anchors the bronze sculpture coated with a black finish as the other facing up is filled with a bunch of flowers spilling on his clothes. Decorative doorstops are gathered like votives on one side of the sculpture and bring a personal touch to the piece. They belonged to Cave's grandmother who left the door ajar during funerals to allow the dead's departure and the entry of grieving visitors. Amalgam (Plot) (2024) is paired with Graft (2024) a quadriptych covering one of the walls. The flowery assemblage is made of needlepoint samples, painted tole and vintage trays including a needlepoint portrait of the artist, stitched together in a patchwork reminiscent of quilts. On the left, hand-crafted flowers cascade from the panel in a luxuriant bouquet. The piece refers to the depth of social divide between upper classes occupied with leisure activities like needlepoint while the subservient class of domestics is represented by trays.  

A Lit History (2026) is a ginormous installation made of thousands of objects arranged on a lighted table surrounded by five life guard chairs decorated with wire mammoth heads, pairs of tusks and vintage gramophones' horns. This is a short description of the extravagant accumulation of eclectic objects arranged on the stand: beaded flowers, canes, pair of skates, antennas, children toys, bicycle... evoking surrealist compositions or the clutter of a hoarder. Two installations stand out. A group of sound suits quintessential to Cave's practice towers over the display as a cluster of long threatening nails arranged in a circle around a sculpted black upward fist, symbol of unity and resistance, is found on the other side of the table. One of the walls is entirely covered by Palimpsest (Promised Land) (2026), a collaborative work with Bob Faust, Nick Cave's professional and personal partner. The heavy curtain made of colorful pony beads strung on shoelaces completely obscures a collage of photographs from Nick Cave's grandparents' farm, alluding to fading and lost memories. 

Throughout the exhibition Nick Cave shares his personal and family memories and encourages the community to revisit its history. The artist grew up in Missouri where fossils of the huge mammals are  found and in a symbol of revival he "resurrects" the extinct mammoths. His idea is not far fetched as bioscience labs are already working on the de-extinction of the colossal animals posing some ethical challenges. The show which will include live performances at some point encourages the visitors' participation through a series of personal questions fit for school assignments or talk therapy. Among them: "If you were brought back to life after being extinct for millennia what would you expect to see? What might the experience feel like physically and emotionally?" or in front of thousand of objects gathered to trigger our souvenirs: "Which objects are you more curious about Do any of them bring up stories you would rather leave untold?" etc.... The comments trivialize the show which could appear filled with crafty ingredients and a pile up of soulless objects to some visitors. In a public spirited gesture, the multidisciplinary artist exposes his nostalgia for "communal togetherness and simple joys and activities" and promotes objects as a bridge to the future. 

Nick Cave's future looks bright. He is invited to participate in the 61st Venice Biennale opening in May.

Photographs by the author:

"Roam" (2026)

"Amalgam (Plot)" (2024)

"A Lit History" (detail) (2026)

"A Lit History (detail) 

"Graft" (2024)

The Rubell Collection in New Orleans

With 28 Chinese in Miami and 30 Americans at the Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans, the Rubell Family Collection is showing its extensive holdings of art works. Miami is known for its patrons like Margulies, Cisneros, De La Cruz or Pérez who sponsored the recently opened Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM). The foundation goes one step further and organizes itinerant exhibitions. The selection displayed at the CAC includes almost one hundred works from thirty African-American artists representing all styles from minimalist to expressionist, abstract to figurative and conceptual art, through paintings, videos, installations, photographs. The theme is focused on "issues of racial, sexual and historical identity in contemporary culture" and gives a  thread to the show which could otherwise lack cohesion due to its diversity and become overwhelming due to its size.

There is no beginning or end to the exhibition and I started on the top level with a work from Kara Walker depicting sexually charged scenes through her cut-paper silhouettes, facing a piece from Rodney McMillian, a carpet soiled by the remnants of daily life, stains from poverty, neglect and despair, a world away from Beuys's cocoon-like soft covers. Three photographs from Hank Willis Thomas hit a nerve. I am not surprised to read about his interest in advertising. His message is direct, short and to the point: a branded head, an athlete attempting to jump with a chain attached to his ankle, the price of a son's burial. Glenn Ligon is well represented with several works including America, 2006, and another neon work reading " I Sell the Shadow to Sustain the Substance", a famous sentence from Sojourner Truth printed on the photographs of a self-portrait she was selling to support the cause during the Civil War. The neon covered with black paint lights up the wall behind, creating a reverse effect. Ligon's works possess the powerful sobriety of minimalism. This is in contrast to the expressionistic paintings from Robert Colescott, which I realized, are outrageously funny with their historically and politically savvy humor. For the first time, I had a chance to appreciate both artists. The lonely work from Jean-Michel Basquiat unfortunately does not represent him at his best. Four sound suits from Nick Cave are standing guard, looking decorative and off subject. The photographs from Rashid Johnson need to be mentioned. They are showing a side of black African-American success, sophisticated males, dapper, proud to join the tie and pin-striped crowd. Noir, 1978, from Barkley L. Hendricks, brings us back to the tradition of portraiture with a black male, fragile in his exposed nudity. On  the first floor, a work from Leonardo Drew can be seen from the street, a massive piece of minimalist art made with (a lot of)cotton and Kehinde Wiley's African-American street heroes acquire a new powerful status in their Great Masters surroundings. We can get a taste of Kerry James Marshall with two of his works, meet Lorna Simpson represented by Wigs, 1994 or the outsider artist Purvis Young. The list goes on with Wancheti Mutu, William Pope, Carrie May Weems, Renée Green, Gary Simmons... Through different techniques and media, all contribute to the conversation.
Overall the exhibition is very busy, sometimes difficult to follow with highs and lows. Some pieces feel like they are displayed to fit the walls but the visitor can make his own choice in the collection of "many of the most important African American artists of the last three decades".
The list of African American artists who could have been selected goes on, Willie Cole, Shakaia Booker, Rashad Newsome...
How to appreciate such diversity? Known artists, less known? I remember Aristotle's quote: "The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance".
Most of the works would pass the test.

photographs were not allowed
photographs from Google images


"Triple Portrait of Charles I", 2007, Kehinde Wiley
"Pygmalion", 1987, Robert Colesscott
"America", 2008, Glenn Ligon

Beads, twigs, glass, etc...

Like in a museum of anthropology, the tribeless costumes are waiting to dance and sing at the Newcomb Art Gallery on the Tulane campus in New Orleans. The lifeless suits called Soundsuits by the artist become a colorful display and the visitor can imagine the primal scream produced by "Soundsuit", 2006, made of twigs, the joyful Jazz tune from the festive creature made of fabrics or a dark, deep sound from a towering costume which could belong to a secrete society. The display is at home in New Orleans just before Mardi Gras and I am waiting to see the suits dance and hear the music flow. The artist, Nick Cave was trained as a dancer and his background influences his works heavily. The visitor regrets not to be able to see the show and feels frustrated, standing in front of the mute costumes. A video of a performance by the artist would have brought the full dimension to the exhibition.

The main gallery is occupied by the works from Joyce Scott made of beads, wood, porcelain, glass. The medium gives a folk artsy flavor, but the message is deep and even violent. The artist travelled extensively to acquire her techniques, Central America, American Southwest, South America...
Her "Decapitated Tanzania Boy Head", 2009-2011, representing the head of an albino-African boy with white beads, her black-blond females sculpted in wood with their yellow beaded wigs make the point: being different is deadly. The artist also knows how to use irony with her porcelains, disturbing the gentle scenes of countesses and their well-behaved companions, with small sculptures of wooden African goddesses calling these works Still Funny Series. Using ancestral techniques, Joyce Scott has developed her own language keeping the viewer between smile and repulsion.

Off the Beaten Path: Women, Violence & Art is a side show with several works dedicated to the subject. Among them, Susan Plum's Luz y Solidaridad resumes the condition of females in too many countries with these giant brooms designed like long ponytails.

From beads, sequins, glass and more... to very serious subjects.

photographs by the author, from top to bottom:

Nick Cave's display at the Newcomb gallery

"Cobalt Rain", Joyce Scott, 2011

"Luz y Solidaridad" Susan Plum , 2006