Nick Cave, The Let Go (2018), all images via Greem Jellyfish for Art Observed

“Back in the day the club was my safe place-and losing myself on the dance floor has always kept me centered.”

The Let Go is artist Nick Cave’s new work at Park Avenue Armory, a multi-sensory performance using visual works, sounds, and movement to transform the Armory into a dance-based town hall aimed at bringing together visitors, performers, DJs, dancers and community members to participate in a collective act of catharsis. The audience is asked to let go of frustration and negativity, and to uplift one another as they participate in this powerful socially-engaged piece.  Stringing together a series of interrelated works, The Let Go is bounded by the installation Chase, and where a performance titled The Up Right, featuring one of Cave’s signature Sound Suits, is activated by a jazz keyboardist, choir and opera singer. Concluding the performance,  the “town hall” becomes a dance hall, complete with DJ. (more…)

A gift of $2 million to the SAIC has funded a new position for artist Nick Cave as the school’s first Stephanie and Bill Sick endowed professor of fashion, body and garment.  “Nick Cave is an exceptional artist and teacher who has had a momentous impact on his students and his community, and we are so proud that he is the first recipient of this professorship,” Stephanie Sick.   (more…)

Artist Nick Cave has announced plans for a parade utilizing the artist’s colorful and imaginative costumes through the underprivileged neighborhoods of Shreveport, Louisiana, thanks in part to a $40,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. (more…)

Nick Cave, Sea Sick (2014), via Henry Murphy for Art Observed

Nick Cave and Jack Shainman Gallery have opened a pair of shows this fall, spanning the gallery’s two Chelsea locations on 20th and 24th street locations. Separately titled as Rescue and Made for Whites by Whites, the exhibitions articulate the artist’s familiar thematic concerns, addressing racial impositions and how they are reflected in everyday consumer culture.  Cave delivers the prominent aspects of his practice, such as repurposing of found objects, assemblage of varying textures, and the performance of cultural rituals, with a somewhat stark hand, allowing a fierce critique to emerge from the works themselves. (more…)

Nick Cave, Heard•NY (2013)

Artist Nick Cave was in New York on Monday, presenting his new performance piece, HEARD•NY, at Grand Central’s Vanderbilt Hall.  Co-presented by Creative Time and MTA Arts for Transit, Cave’s ambitious project involves sixty dancers from The Ailey School suited in 30 life-size horse costumes. In choreographed gestures, the horses move around as a colorful herd, bobbing their heads and kicking their feet, intermittently grazing and foraging like real equines. (more…)

Artist and musician Nick Cave’s Heard•NY opened at Grand Central Terminal in New York yesterday, filling the terminal with actors dressed in surreally designed horse costumes.  Bloomberg spoke with the artist about his practice, and his goals for the installation, which will remain open all this week.  “I’m looking at the station as a platform to get people back to that place where we dream. We’re in a world where we’re trying to do what we can to exist and hold on to our jobs. So I’d like to transmit this dream-state feeling, to get us out of our day-to-day routine for a moment.”  Cave says. (more…)

Musician, artist and writer Nick Cave will bring 30 of his signature Soundsuits, intricately designed to resemble horses, to Grand Central Station this March.  The horses, which are operated by two actors, will “graze” in the main hall of the station, and will occasionally break into dance when accompanied by two harpists.  The project, titled “Heard•NY” is co-produced by Creative Time and MTA Arts for Transit. (more…)

Allora & Calzadilla, Umbrella and Bell (2011), front; Anish Kapoor, Untitled (2011), behind. At Lisson Gallery, booth J1. All photos on site for Art Observed by Caroline Claisse.

International collectors and art enthusiasts filled the Miami Beach Convention Center for the Wednesday preview of Art Basel Miami Beach 2011. While the maze of gallery booths could seem overwhelming, buyers were able to navigate through for a solid day of sales and works placed on reserve. Larger galleries such as Gagosian, David Zwirner, and Sprüth Magers sold several works and editions thereof. Speaking with Neil Wenman of Hauser & Wirth, “We’ve had a great response on the opening day. In particular for works by Thomas Houseago, Rashid Johnson, Paul McCarthy, Matthew Day Jackson, Richard Jackson—all works sold and all available editions.” Jenny Holzer’s new paintings at Sprüth Magers sold for upwards of $300,000, as well as Condos and Krugers at the booth. Lesser-known galleries were pleased to gain the exposure the fair offers; if not selling right away, interest was high and therefore also prospects for the remainder of the fair. Gallery Arratia Beer said the crowd was very engaged and informed, also saying, “The fair feels very international. It’s also good to see young internationals here too.” The newer Latin American presence was reportedly strong, both exhibiting and buying, as expected in Miami as opposed to the Frieze or FIAC fairs across the Atlantic earlier this year. Celebrities on hand included Julian Schnable, Eli Broad, Brett Rattner, Naomi Campbell, and Sean Combs/P. Diddy.

Larry Gagosian

Entrance D at the Miami Convention Center

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All photos Art Observed by Guillaume Vandame

A festive atmosphere opening night at Mary Boone surrounded visitors while they studied Chicago artist Nick Cave‘s parade of bright and exotic soundsuits. Unique hybrid costumes made from a variety of materials, the works combine antique carpets, fabrics, beads, and everyday kitsch objects. Similar to naming the works Untitled, each piece is called a ‘soundsuit;’ various objects, all under the same title. The artist said of his style, “The world is my inventory,” drawing on roots in Trinidad and Haiti, and gathering resources that are no longer used in order to create something new.

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Detail of Soundsuit

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From “White Noise,” a group show at the James Cohan Gallery.

The James Cohan Gallery is hosting “White Noise,” a show that incorporates pieces by various artists that focus on silence.  Can one write silence? portray it in art? Is silence merely the absence of sound or an entity in itself? These are among the questions which the performance artists, painters, photographers, installation artists, and video artists of “White Noise” confront, in an exhibition that features an additional four new works specially commissioned for the show.  Nick Cave, Simon Evans, Brendan Fowler, and Fred Tomaselli present exhibition-specific works, alongside those by well-known artists Laurie Anderson, Robert Morris, Joseph Beuys, Yoko Ono, and more.

Related links:
James Cohan Gallery : WHITE NOISE
Exhibition of Sounds to be Looked at and Objects to be Heard at James Cohan Gallery [artdaily]

Jack Pierson, “Silence,” at James Cohan Gallery.

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