#soundsuits

BLACK HISTORY MONTH: Celebrating Artist Nick Cave!

This week we feature a selection of Soundsuits by multi-disciplinary artist Nick Cave (1959-), and highlighted in the book 30 Americans published in 2013 in association with a traveling exhibition of the same name drawn from the Rubell Family Collection and presented nationally between 2008 and 2014. Born in Missouri, Cave studied Fiber Arts at the Kansas City Art Institute, dance at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre in New York City, and completed his MFA at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. He now lives and works in Chicago. In a recent interview with Art Basel, Cave describes the liberating experience of creating art from a “foundation of purpose.” He is a “messenger, artist, educator,” he says. “In that order,” he emphasizes.

Cave built his first Soundsuit in response to the Rodney King beatings in 1992, wanting to capture the feeling of being “discarded, dismissed, profiled.” He gathered twigs - also discarded, he thought - and built them into a suit of protective armor. While Cave works from a place of purpose and urgency, objects themselves often instigate the creation of a new suit: ceramic birds, buttons, toys, hair, crocheted granny squares. The immersive quality of the suit is meant to invite the audience into a “place of dreaming,” whether through their larger-than-life static presence in museums, or their celebratory, otherworldly dance in live performances. Cave embraces the playful, inviting, and joyful experience of the suits. “What,” he wonders, “do I need to sort of put in place to allow you to dream?”

If you’re in D.C. this April (and if creepy billionaires haven’t ruined everything by then), go see Nick Cave and his work at the Smithsonian Craft Show. He is the 2025 Smithsonian Visionary Award Winner.

View other Black History month posts.

--Amanda, Special Collections Graduate Intern

Nick Cave

Soundsuits

2021 - 2022

Nick Cave (US, 1959)

Cave’s training in dance choreography and textile art inspired him to create Soundsuits, named after the noises they emitt when in motion.

Cave created the first Soundsuit in response to the brutal beating of Rodney King by police officers in Los Angeles in 1991. Soundsuits protect their human content obstructing bias on the basis of race, gender, and class.

“Each One, Every One, Equal All” (2022).

Nick Cave’s Energetic ‘Soundsuits’ Dance Along the New York City Subway in a 360-Foot Mosaic

Spanning the 42 St. Connector between Times Square and Bryant Park in New York City is a troupe of dancing figures dressed in vibrant costumes of feather and fur. The ebullient characters are based on the iconic series of Soundsuits by Chicago-based artist Nick Cave (previously) and are the first part of a massive permanent installation titled Each One, Every One, Equal All in the public transit corridor.

Photo by Photo by MTA/Trent Reeves. All images courtesy of MTA Arts & Design.

Soundsuit, 2010, mixed media, by American artist Nick Cave

“I try and make people look at my work without judgement. It’s very important to me to find ways for people to identify with each other and connect with each other without judgement. How can we be in the same space—next to one another—and relate in ways that change the dynamic?…. Art breaks down barriers. It allows us—collectively—to move forward.” – Nick Cave in an interview with Andrew Bolton, curator at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. page 99.

Nick Cave’s colorful and fantastical wearable art may not make us think of anything other than celebration. Cave calls these wearable artworks “Soundsuits” and his idea for this body of work grew out of his pain in reaction to the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles in 1992. His works are extremely humorous, beautiful, and celebratory, but at the same time, they also raise questions about race, gender, age, class, and sexuality. You can watch a short video of Nick Cave talking about his “Soundsuits” on YouTube.