Nick Cave’s recent work is forging new directions, merging art, nature, and self into vehicles for loving, meaningful connections. “Amalgams and Graphts,” his current exhibition at Jack Shainman Gallery’s new Tribeca location, debuts two bodies of work that challenge viewers to open themselves to love, emotion, and connection. No longer taking shelter within the anonymizing armor of the Soundsuits, Cave asserts a powerful, fully visible new persona in these revealing works.
Jan Garden Castro: The three Amalgam bronzes are intended for public spaces. What are some of the reasons for putting your face and body forward in new ways in these works? I’m particularly interested in Amalgam (Origin) (2024), a gentle giant fusing human and tree, which offers an empathic, resonating antidote to hate and disaster.
Nick Cave: Amalgam is a Soundsuit, and it has always been a Soundsuit. It is the beginning of a reveal of humanness in a different way. My hands, my feet; the body is my body scanned. How do we adorn our bodies in forms of celebration? How do we stand in our truth? How do we become this offering to a larger world? How do we get outside of institutions and become accessible and available in public spaces?
JGC: So, you scanned your body and other materials and sent them to a CAD program?
NC: Yes, along with direct casting of my hands and feet to capture the humanness of those exposed parts.
JGC: What was the next step?
NC: Assembling all the parts in a digital space, as well as building from actual materials. The upper part is made from fallen trees on Jack Shainman’s property at The School [in Kinderhook, New York], which are actual size. It was then brought all together in a digital format to print and cast at a foundry on the East Coast.
JGC: Why is this compositional mashup of casts of your body and natural forms, including trees, birds and flowers, significant?
NC: It’s Mother Earth. We need the birds. We need the bees. We need the trees. They pollinate and provide oxygen and energy and food sources. This is a migration hub like Grand Central Station; it’s a place of gathering, a moving through the world.
JGC: You use many types of birds—jays, doves, hawks, eagles. Why is it important for viewers to grasp that you are asking them to investigate their own self-formations and building blocks?
NC: We all get up in the morning, and we go through our closets, and we make decisions: What is my look for the day, how am I stepping out into the world? That’s number one. Number two is: How do I step out into the world with compassion and empathy, love and joy? We need these things. We have to find ways to take care of each other. The simple things matter the most. Just to say, “Hi.” Just to say, “Oh my god, you look great today.”
JGC: Do you have a meditation practice?
NC: I do. Every day I sit in silence for one hour. Can you imagine how we would exist in the world if every day this was our daily ritual? With so much noise, we don’t know how to get quiet, so we’re not taking care of ourselves and keeping up with ourselves.
JGC: Your sculpture is also a critique—or an antidote—to public sculpture that glorifies war, fighting, machismo.
NC: Yes. It’s ongoing, nonstop.
JGC: Amalgam (Plot) (2024) is also about leaving behind the Soundsuits designed to conceal race, gender, and class.
NC: There are 150 antique doorstops surrounding the figure, which is face down on the ground. Doorstops were used when someone in your family passed so that the ghost could escape the home.
JGC: The “Graphts,” another new direction, are mixed-media assemblages combining needlepoint self-portraits and fields of color and foliage constructed from vintage serving trays. This is really the first time that you’ve revealed a recognizable self. It seems like you are speaking up, coming out in new ways. One of your self-portraits includes a gay pride scarf and an iconic police hat and shades. You look tough and vulnerable at the same time.
NC: I did Soundsuits for so long, and this is the beginning of the reveal and looking at ideas of identity through forms of dress. Dressing symbolically can say a lot of things. There’s a hardness, yet a softness, a militancy; it’s that play on how we see things in ourselves.
JGC: In another embroidery, you are shown with flowers coming out of your open mouth. That’s a strong statement.
NC: Love and compassion and empathy. Sometimes we have to express that even when being silenced.
JGC: In the images, you’re communicating with your eyes, and empathy comes through. These are magnetic works—force fields of color and imagery, beautiful, original, and symbolic. How did the “Graphts” series come about?
NC: The “Graphts” started in 2024. It took us three months to learn needlepoint, then we had to source all the trays and have them cut—the majority of the time was preparing the materials in order for me to then build the “Graphts.” The painted surfaces are extraordinary, as is the fact that these trays are so personal, that someone would take the time. So much identity comes through in the trays—each one is done differently, handled so differently—it’s a testimony to patience and time. I was celebrating this sort of insignificance of something that is dismissed. I’m interested in how we “read” the narrative of the tray; it has always been known as an object of service, and that’s another conversation that can be had. The moment one starts to paint it, that changes how we read it, so I was interested in how history is covered up. Then when I cut the rim of the tray, it becomes a field of color and part of a patchwork quilt.
JGC: You’re repurposing history to honor the past.
NC: Or we could be in a room, and this is all wallpaper, and I could be inviting you in for tea. We could be in conversation. I’m interested in how it reads and what you find yourself discovering in the work.
JGC: I love your wallpaper in the Broadway offices (on the other side of Jack Shainman’s 46 Lafayette space). What does it mean to change the spelling of “graph” to “grapht?” Is it a combination of graft and graph, coining a new word? Does it mean grafting a new skin onto something?
NC: That’s exactly what it stems from. (Photo)graph is the self-portraiture part, and graft is the hybridization of differences coming together as one. That’s the way we built the surface here. The wallpaper is titled Wallwork (2024), and it is my and Bob Faust’s work. The collaborative Wallwork is a response to my work and amplifies the intended feelings.
JGC: Forming one’s identity is an ongoing inquiry. How has your identity changed over the years?
NC: I’m alive. I’m human. We’re constantly in a space of flux, and we’re always morphing. In the next body of work, I’m starting to really look at identity and queer culture through dress; the needlepoints are going to be four by eight feet and stepping into who I am—coming forward in full glory.
JGC: Unless one is stuck.
NC: Even then, you’re somehow still growing in some form or another.
JGC: What was it like growing up in Fulton, Missouri? What motivated you to pursue art?
NC: My parents. The most important thing for my parents was our happiness. They told us, “We don’t know who you are going to be, but you must find happiness.” They just got out of the way. When I was at home drawing or coloring, they knew that I was taken care of, settled with something, while they were attending my brothers. Just paying attention to what your kids are doing tells you exactly who they’re going to be. When I said that I wanted to go to art school, my mother said, “Okay, if that’s what you want to do.” Did I think this could be possible? I was hoping it could be possible. You’re not handed a manual of how to do it. I’m a dreamer and believe dreams can come true.
JGC: How did you land in Chicago?
NC: I went to Cranbrook for my masters. At my closing meeting with my professor, he said, “And, by the way, you have a teaching position at the Art Institute.”
JGC: Did you have any formative early interactions with Richard Hunt? What about Theaster Gates?
NC: I spent a lot of time in Richard Hunt’s studio. Theaster is a really good friend of mine. We hang out. That’s the beauty of it. They’re fabulous artists, and we work so differently, yet we have so many things in common. Chicago’s got a young, supportive vibe now, which is good. It’s smart.
JGC: How is your studio space on Chicago’s north side organized?
NC: It’s live-work. I live upstairs. I have 10 assistants. It’s minimal, open, with a lot of light; and I can put art up on the walls.
JGC: Are you still affiliated with the Fashion Department at the School of the Art Institute?
NC: Yes. I’ve been at the School for 35 years and have been head of the Fashion Department for 15 years. It’s never the same. It’s the next generation of young artists bringing in all types of perspectives. We have two years to get them to trust themselves.
JGC: Why is fashion an underlying theme in your projects? Is it a secret weapon?
NC: Is it fashion, or is it style? I think it’s style—individual interpretation of how they see themselves.
JGC: Do you and Bob Faust still run the online SoundsuitShop?
NC: Yes, it still exists in a wholesale way. We sell to museums when I have a show up. And we also run Facility, our foundation, and a project space in our storefront gallery. We invite three artists three times a year to do installations in the storefront.
JGC: You are supporting other artists.
NC: Definitely. We are always on the lookout for artists, especially those outside the traditional path of gallery representation. It’s a carte blanche opportunity. We don’t tell you what to do. We share the spaces, and each artist gets a three-month run with a modest stipend.
JGC: Any advice to the kid in Fulton, Missouri—or to aspiring artists?
NC: Know that you have the permission and support and the universe’s energy to step into your whole self. It’s the only way to be.
JGC: In the fall, you have an exhibition opening at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, and the Amalgam works are slated to be installed at the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Any other projects or commissions in the works?
NC: I am working on other large-scale sculptures. I have an upcoming project with the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden, where I will premiere five additional large bronze works in 2027. An amazing piece titled Starship will be part of this project. I’m working on this now. These bronze works take one to two years to make. We’re working on projects that are two to four years out due to the construction. I’m excited.
“Amalgams and Graphts” is on view at Jack Shainman Gallery in Tribeca through March 29, 2025. “Mammoth,” Cave’s solo exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, is on view November 21, 2025 through January 3, 2027.
