July 23, 2016-July 11, 2017, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

Nick Cave’s Property (2014) is a recent acquisition. It was presented as an exhibition with associated programming.

Cave’s work, whether his famous Soundsuits, videos, performances or sculptures, explore issues of race, gender, identity, history, and politics. In Property, Cave transforms a rich array of objects found in flea markets, thrift and antique stores, laden with symbolic, personal and autobiographical meanings into highly charged works of art with socially relevant content intended to encourage cultural change.

Born in Fulton, Missouri, in 1959, Cave is the youngest of seven brothers. As a child, he created his own garments made from his siblings’ hand-me-downs refashioning them into clothes that were uniquely his own. At the Kansas City Art Institute in the late 1970s and early 1980s Cave studied fashion and textiles in the Fiber Department. There, he designed garments and costumes and participated in performances, which were enhanced through his training at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. Through Ailey, Cave developed his own sense of creative movement, later translating this choreographic skill into his Soundsuit performances. Cave currently lives in Chicago, and is the chair of the Department of Fashion and Design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Cave is best known for his celebrated Soundsuits, elaborate costumes constructed from found materials—twigs, buttons, beads, toys, raffia, sequins, doilies, and an expansive range of textiles. Soundsuits may be displayed as totemic-like sculptures or worn in exuberant performances. They were named for their aural quality—the sounds made when set in motion. As an African-American gay man, Cave has spoken of being doubly discarded by American society. According to the artist, Soundsuits provide a second protective “skin,” identity or persona that liberates him from prejudices of race and sexual orientation. “Once you become disguised, that is the moment you can become something other,” he states. Cave is interested in psychologically transformative experience while performing a Soundsuit, and says that it “all depends on your willingness to surrender and to conceive of this other being.” Then, it becomes a “true collaboration.”

Cave’s Property reminds us that objects carry emotionally loaded meanings. As artifacts of culture this diverse assemblage of materials consists of racially charged vintage objects, articles recalling African American life and the artist’s personal childhood memories.  Property includes a figure representing a caricatured man standing with a shoeshine chair, referencing racial stereotypes. The superstructure surrounding the figure is adorned with flowers, bottles of perfume, beads, and ceramic birds and recalls a tree-of-life, suggesting hope and regeneration in the midst of racial oppression. Cave’s decision to incorporate bird figurines was inspired by childhood memories of his grandparent’s home, where such figurines were considered precious art objects displayed within a china cabinet. In Property, objects on the floor contained inside rectangular vintage molds were left in their original state or creatively embellished by the artist. A carved wooden chain suggests slavery. A calf-weaning tool symbolizes separation from one’s mother. Iron currency from Senegal, Africa, represents trade. A feather duster implies a life of service. Cave associates antique marbles with his favorite childhood game. More broadly, braided hair references African American identity. The title Property recalls slavery as well as the lifecycle of things sold, used, and discarded, then intentionally appropriated by the artist for creative transformation into socially responsive sculpture.

Cave was inspired to create Property when he discovered a container shaped like the head of a black man labeled Spittoon at a flea market. Shocked, he began to consider how he might use derogatory things in order to “rehabilitate the problematic loaded object and find a place of reverence and empowerment through reuse.” He hopes that the sculpture will be revelatory, causing the viewer to ask themselves, “Have you moved forward? How have you changed? What work have you done?”

This exhibition is supported by the Rheta A. Sosland Fund.