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)

Softer Art at the Renwick Gallery

Famously, Penelope spent twenty years weaving a shroud for her father-in-law Laertes, waiting for the return of her husband Odysseus from ten years of war and ten more years of adventures on his way home, while she rebuffed numerous suitors. Her craft is still associated with the quintessential values of  domesticity, fidelity, resilience, perseverance, all attributes of femininity. In the 1950's the term "fiber art" was coined to include a wide range of material and skills to produce pieces loosing their functionality to gain in aesthetics in an attempt to set boundaries between craft and art. The works from thirty women artists have been selected  for the exhibition Subversive, Skilled, Sublime: Fiber Art by Women, ongoing at the Renwick Gallery steps away from the White House in Washington, D.C. The promising title reflects fiber art's expanded horizons, from media, techniques, to themes, revealed through thirty-three pieces displayed on the first floor of the venue, home to the Smithsonian American Art Museum's program of contemporary craft and decorative arts. All the works belong to the Smithsonian's collection and span more than three quarters of a century from 1918 to 2004.

Enthralled by the display, it is easy to miss the informative wall text at the entrance of the show. At the center of the room, defying gravity, Coil Series III-A Celebration (1978) set on a low circular pedestal is like a spring gushing from the ground, falling in a fountain of un-dyed strands of hemp and wool, turning into red soft foamy curls on the floor. The result of a laborious process of knotting and wrapping, the dazzling sculpture from Claire Zeisler is a perfect example of the "free from the loom" fiber art. Keeping on with the upbeat start, a figurative wall piece from Emma Amos Winning (1982) features the black silhouette of a woman leaping with joy, free, hair flowing, on a bright background mixture of painted and woven fabric, ribbons and threads. Red and Blue (1969) from Else Regensteiner, a more traditional woven wall hanging, underlines the Bauhaus's influence on the artist who attended the Chicago Institute of Design, previously known as the New Bauhaus. Framed by the arched entrance to the next gallery, Box of Falling Stars (1989), part of the Cloud series from Lenore Tawney is another technical feat, catching the light in thousands of thin white strands of linen thread falling from the sky (a square metal frame attached to the ceiling). Every angle of the composition offers a piece of paradise and at times the shadow of a cloud. Close by an earlier piece, In the Dark Forest (ca. 1959), illustrates the skills of the weaver who transforms the loom into a canvas, mixing patches of autumnal colors. The haptic piece with its mossy texture transports us in the deep wood where a few rays of light filter through the trees. Across, Reflections (1982) from Cynthia Schira offers a serene aquatic landscape made of delicate touches of color, like ripples. In the same area, two wall pieces, Cal y Canto (ca.1979) from famous Colombian artist Olga de Amaral and Breeze (ca.1958) from Mariska Karasz, fashion designer and textile artist, complete the display.  

Each of the thirty artists is represented by one work (occasionally two) complemented by a discrete but enlightening wall text with a photograph and a quote from the artist, comments about the work and relevant biographical information. The show proceeds in the main gallery, a long, wide space under a high ceiling, allowing an enjoyable visit despite the flow of visitors. More tightly packed the works are mostly hanging on the walls, a few are displayed in glass cases. The variety of the works, from colors, material, themes, techniques, could be overwhelming, especially as they seem to be randomly set. It becomes an adventure of a sort to progress through the riveting exhibition looking at a native American rug, a colorful sculpture made by an artist with Down syndrome, or a quilt heavily influenced by African roots, and discover works from less known artists next to famous ones.  A towering iconic sculpture from Sheila Hicks The Principal Wife Goes On (1969), gets a prominent spot in the middle of the gallery close to a humble embroidered quilt from Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, memorial to little girls who perished at the Mexican-American border while migrating to the United States. Every piece tells a story, from the quilt made by Clementine Hunter who never left the Melrose plantation, a place she also describes in her paintings with the same fresh naive style, to a large "femmage" about domesticity assembled by Miriam Schapiro, an engaged feminist artist. From a Birmingham Jail: MLK (1996) from L'Merchie Frazier, a tribute to the civil rights movement's leader, is a patchwork of fuzzy portraits of MLK mixed with images of African sculptures and fragments of texts. More powerful than slogans, Unveiling the Statue of Liberty (1964), a very busy quilt from Katherine Westphal presents a new version of Edward Moran's patriotic painting of the same name made in 1886, with harbor and celebratory flags replaced by a jambalaya of shredded fabrics under the statue. Faith Ringgold, a multimedia artist who just passed in April 2024, favored quilting over painting to celebrate her culture and a piece of American history as her alter ego Cee Cee evolves amid the Harlem Renaissance society.  In a side gallery, two suspended sculptures Medusa (1975) from Neda Al-Hilali, born in the Czech Republic and Nagare VII (1970) from Kay Sekimachi find a place in the floor to ceiling niches while a Peruvian inspired tapestry from Susan L. Iverson and a kinetic seascape from Adela Akers line up the walls. Fiber art can be utilitarian with a decorated dress or a bedspread, figurative or abstract like Crazy Too Quilt (1989) from Lia Cook. It includes also beadwork represented by an elaborate necklace and a sculpture Birth of Mammy #4 ( 2004) from Joyce Scott, a local artist who just had a rousing  retrospective at the Baltimore Museum of Art. 

The last room accommodates a display of archival notes, drawings, samples of colored thread, swatches in glass cases, all part of the meticulous preparatory work leading to the realization of the piece of art. 

Fiber art has come a long way since the scathing review of the show Woven Forms by Louise Bourgeois for Craft Horizons in which she states: "These weaving, delightful as they are, ...., if they must be classified, they would fall somewhere between fine and applied art... The pieces in the show rarely liberate themselves from decoration." Works from Lenore Tawney and Claire Zeisler were included in the exhibition and her comments may be reflecting the "low culture" connotations of fiber art in the early sixties. The show at the Renwick Gallery gives a new broad outlook on fiber as a medium to create art and underlines the variety of works and their far reaching topics, opening new worlds for the viewer. Independent of fashions or movements, fiber art touches all ways of life.

Yes, "Subversive, Skilled, Sublime".       

 

                                                              

photographs by the author:

- Lenore Tawney "Box of Falling Stars" (1989)

-Katherine Westphal "Unveiling the Statue of Liberty" (1964)

-Claire Zeisler "Coil Series III-A Celebration" (1978) 

-Sheila Hicks "The Principal Wife Goes On" (1969)

-Clementine Hunter "Melrose Quilt" (ca.1960)