From the Archives: Nick Cave

All photos by James Prinz Photography. Courtesy of Nick Cave and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

This interview originally appeared Musée Magazine Issue 7: Energy

My name is Nick Cave. I grew up in Missouri. For undergraduate I went to the Kansas City Art Institute; and there’s where I focused on visual art, and also was doing some dance work at the University of Kansas at Kansas City. So dance and art have always been two pivotal points in my development. It’s always been important for me to be connected to ideas around performance. Making things for the body, etc. I think when I was 19 I did my very first kind of parade, presented down in the plaza of Kansas city. I’ve also always been involved with the notion of collaboration, and bringing people together, making spectacles and creating happenings throughout the city and throughout my career.

Comparing Grand Central to what you did when you were 19, is the process that you go through basically the same or has the process changed a lot?

The process is different because of my own maturation as an artist. But the demands are the same. It still takes a team to put something like that together. That’s different. The process still demands trust. At the end of the day it is a solo exhibition, but I had to trust the performers as I worked independently in order to make this work come to life. It’s the same kind of intensity in terms of development. The trust is handed over to you putting together a team that helps facilitate the project. But I think that comes after working in the field, and you start to build these relationships; which become these partnerships that really matter and become youthful and helpful in your process.

How did the Soundsuits come about? And what are they?

In graduate school I was doing massive 18 by 16 foot constructed paintings that started on the wall and would come down to the floor. I was interested in space performance and bodies somehow engaging and moving within environmental ideas. You never know what the power of life can do to your art and what’s going to influence a shift in your work. Soundsuits came about in 1999 after the Rodney King incident. That moment flipped my world upside-down. The more I thought about that incident the more I thought of myself as a black male feeling insignificant, dismissed, discarded. I didn’t have a peer group to talk with about it, and I remember being in the park one day and I thought, “What am I going to do to?” Looking down on the ground I noticed a twig. All of a sudden I went home, came back with my grocery cart, and started collecting all the twigs in the park. I went back home and built a garment (which I didn’t think of as a garment) that was completely covered in twigs; pants and a jacket. I envisioned it as a sculpture until I realized I could put it on. When I put it on I started moving and it made sound. I started thinking about the role of protest: in order to be heard you’ve got to speak louder.

The twig represents the discarded material that we ignore regularly, something we pass by, something we walk on. Wearing the suit I realized I was creating an armor of sorts, a protective shield. For the viewer it was something unidentifiable that was formed, and it looked scary.
Now we are here with Trayvon Martin. This has recycled itself. My most recent work is the TM13 Series, which is Trayvon Martin Twenty-Thirteen.

How do colors influence your work? Do you choose a color because you’re trying to communicate something specific in the form of a metaphor, like the twigs?

There is a very dark political side to the Soundsuits. I think that as artists we have to make strategic decisions, and it starts with asking important questions: What are the seductive elements you bring to the work so the viewer can find an entry point? Once they experience the work, it becomes their decision to accept or deny political overtones. I’m dealing with race, identity, social and economic issues in the work. It’s all there, and I think it’s all fabricated through the mechanisms of construction and ways in which the work is built. I think it’s inherent in the work, but it’s not in your face. I want viewers to invest time in dissecting and being present with the work so that all of a sudden they may discover something that is uncomfortable. Then what do you do with that? Soundsuits are larger than life. There is a feeling of integrity. There is a demanding, authority figure in your face. It’s something that is unfamiliar and the only thing that sparks a connection is that it’s figurative.

How many assistants do you use to make the Soundsuits and the horses in the herd?

It depends on each project. In my studio I have 6 full time assistants who are pretty much with me all the time, but depending on the scale of the project we’ll have up to 30 assistants.

How long did The Herd project take you to complete?

The Herd project started out as a residency at North Texas State University. I was working there between the dance, theater, music, and art department. The art department built the skin, the music department created the score, and the art department fabricated the structural device that was eased in to bring the skin to the surface of the apparatus. It took about 8 months and 60 people to get the project out and working.

You want to be able to produce. Volume is one thing, but if you don’t have depth within the volume the work won’t hold together. The magic in this work is the horses’ larger-than- life, fantastical quality. The surface had to be alive and ac- tivated, so it was essential how we built the structure that spoke on a couple of magnitudes. Each horse’s identity was determined by the pattern on its facemask, and all of these patterns were fabrics from around the world. I wanted to address global intersection, the idea of coming together as a collective whole. We are all culturally unique and manage to exist within the same world.

When it was completed, and when it showed in Grand Central, what came over you?

It was like walking into my dreams. I got on the plane and thought, “Oh my God. This idea, this magical idea that I’ve been thinking about for probably three years, but didn’t have the means to make happen, is being realized.” I was hyperventilating. There is a level of project that I do which I consider “dream projects.” They can’t exist unless they are financially supported by an institution or a museum or what have you. So this was me literally walking into my dream. I can sketch it out, write the script, but it’s not the same thing until it happens.

Why did you decide to do the herd? Did you have something in mind when you came up with the idea?

Oh yeah, I had a number of things in mind. I was thinking about the development and construction of Grand Central Station. Before trains it was horses that transported the materials that helped build the station. Also, in the main hall there is a pegasus. Once they cleaned the ceiling, there was this pegasus that was a part of the drawing that is in the station. It was also how the station operates. It’s a train station, a place where people come and go. People are always moving, things are always happening. That’s really why I wanted to bring it there.

I also wanted to bring us back to that place, that dream-like state. We’re all so consumed by trying to hold on to our jobs and survive; to be able to bring something of this magnitude to a space that allowed us to get out of our day to day sort of routine and to get us back to a magical moment in time. Grand Central Station was a prime example of me coming face to face and realizing my purpose and why I do what I do.

Which is?

Which is to use my art as a vehicle for change. Because at the end of the day, even with my sculptural work, every- thing is developed from this whole excess of surplus: this recycling of materials and using this abundance of stuff we’re surrounded by. So again, it’s talking about using this as another way of being socially conscious. Then going to situations which will be able to influence people’s lives. My work is written about in the fashion magazines these days. I can’t tell you the number of designers that are influenced by the work. I learn more about my work just by where it’s placed, in terms of editorial. And it’s across the board, from architecture to fashion, to art, to performance. That tells me I have the ability to move and navigate between all of these genres, which is exactly what I do.

Aside from it being aesthetically beautiful, it was just the energy, and everyone was so happy when they saw it. It made people feel happy. Yeah, you know, and that’s the thing that’s exciting to me, is that there is content in the work. But at the same time we’re moving at such rapid pace and we’re coming and going so quickly that what is that one element that you may run across, that can just bring a smile to your face in the matter of a moment? It’s like, if I’m running an errand and I turn the corner and there’s someone in a lobster suit, pro- moting a restaurant. It’s that sort of shift in my momentum, my mobility that can trigger my train of thought.

Inspiration can come from anywhere, of course. Did you always photograph your work from the beginning?

Always. As a student, part of the curriculum was that at the end of the semester we photographed all of our work. It was always part of the data process. Today it’s a different kind of reality. They call on a Monday, they need images by Thursday, and those are editorial. No one works within a 3-month span anymore. You have to have it ready to go so when someone calls, we have to be able to send them over.

Your performance work is site specific. Do you always create your work with a specific place in mind? What comes first, the idea or the place?

The idea. I don’t ever want a place to stunt the process of development. I like to keep it as organic as I can. It’s like when I do a music exhibition, each museum environment demands a different set of problems and experiences, so for me I have to go the museum and I have to sit in the space. What does this mean? And how am I going to pull together this installation? What is the flow? How am I going to have my audience to move through the work? What do I want them to receive in the journey? I keep the work and the environment very disconnected.

Do you ever think of yourself, in a sense, as being an entertainer?

No, but I know that I am on that edge. For me, it’s all about be- ing on top of the fence. Where the conversation can be about these other areas of interest. I find my work to be interesting because we can talk fashion if we want to, we can talk contour, we can talk sculpture, we can talk performance, we can talk photography, we can talk video. Does it have the potential of being a Las Vegas, fabulous, fucking show? ... Yes sir!

You mentioned you were working on TM13 for Treyvon Martin 2013, how do you choose to represent that?

This work is very interesting because I am basically work- ing with the figure but the figure is dressed in sneakers, jeans, and hoodie. I am surrounding the figures with all of the forms, these blown molds, which are like the Santa at Christmas, or a reindeer, or an angel, all of this mold- ed plastic. Those are all part of this structure that is built around the body, and over top of all that is this beaded webbing. A tar webbing structure that holds it all together so it appears that the piece is trapped, or caged, inside of this net. It doesn’t seem to have any form until you get up close and you start to peer into the net and you see that it’s a young teen in a hoodie, jeans, and a t-shirt. I’m going to premiere these, 3 of them, at Miami Basel