Nick Cave in "Chicago" - Season 8 | Art21

Nick Cave:
This place of dreaming within my work

really is the place that I find 
that I exist in most of the time.

You know, it's just this sort 
of amazing state of mind.

It is about dreaming for the audience,

but I've got to be able to 
set up those parameters.

What do I need to sort of put 
in place to allow you to dream?

[synth music]

[camera clicks]

I'm based in Chicago.

For me, it's an amazing place 
to be because I can focus,

I can have the type of studio that I need,

I can introduce a new project here.

And there is a network of people that I know here 
that can help sort of inform and build my work.

So it really becomes this interesting 
sort of laboratory for me.

[spectators oohing]

The first Soundsuit was in '92 in response 
to the Rodney King incident, the L.A. riots.

I was sitting in the park one day 
and just sort of thinking about,

What does it feel like to be 
discarded, dismissed, profiled?

There was this twig on the ground.

And I looked at that twig as something discarded.

And then I proceeded to just start 
collecting the twigs in the park.

And I brought them all back to the studio.

And then I started to build this sculpture.

[indistinct conversations]

I started to realize that the moment I 
started to move in it, it made sound.

Then it just literally put 
everything in perspective.

I was building this suit of armor,

something that I could shield 
myself from the world and society.

And so out of that came this 
sculpture-performative kind of work.

I think after the first Soundsuit,

I had a different approach to art making.

And I realized that I was 
an artist with a conscience.

The moment I did was the moment that 
my life literally turned upside-down.

[energetic pulsing music]

I think it's just me kind of experimenting.

It's like, you know, a scientist 
exploring alternative ideas.

— How's it look?
— Awesome.

— Oh, my God. It looks amazing.

[Nick Cave] I wanted to be not necessarily 
something that is defined.

You know, like with the Soundsuit, 
I don't draw any of them.

— If that's areas that are,
like, bad, like,

put a yellow pin.

— OK.

[Nick Cave] I work hard, but I'm one single individual.

It was just too much. And so I had 
to hire 3 full-time assistants.

[violin music]

Now there's, you know, 10 studio assistants 
that are regular full-time assistants.

They're all artists, which is great.

— I got just the end left.

So just, you know, maybe 2 1/2
square feet.

So that's about 2 days.

Should be done, you know,
Thursday, I think.

[Nick Cave] If I'm coming up with a new 
concept for a Soundsuit,

I tend to always do the first one myself.

It's very meditative for me. 
I can do it for hours on end.

— I just need a little bit more.

[Nick Cave] It's all really based on one 
object that becomes the instigator.

That's how a Soundsuit is built.

It's built on me sort of identifying an object 
and then me taking that object and relocating it

on and around the body.

And then that begins this sort of journey.

[cars driving]

— We need metal flowers.

— A lot of metal flowers.

[Nick Cave] We just did a road trip looking for materials for 
the body of work that I'm working on currently.

— Let's go back here.

Look at all this silver.

I need to start collecting
that.

[Nick Cave] I find that when it comes to 
looking for supplies for my work,

I'm at the flea markets, the antique malls

looking for something that 
may spark a new direction.

— There's a lot of ducks.

— No ducks.

— No ducks.

[Nick Cave] I don't have a list ever.

I may not know how I'm going 
to use it right at the moment.

But it all eventually sort of comes back 
around and enters the work at some point.

I'm finding that I'm building work 
as we're antiquing right on the spot.

I may build an entire piece 
because I will find "x" here.

And then I'll say, OK, I need 
to find this to go with "x."

[strumming music]

All of this kind of stuff is nostalgic. It is 
this place that we want to sort of remember.

♪ ♪

One day I just started buying these ceramic birds.

But, you know, I bought them 
because in my upbringing,

that was what was considered precious art.

You know, it was kept in the china cabinet.

And that was my way of staying connected to 
my grandparents as they were getting older.

And it was my way of honoring 
and sort of celebrating how

they influenced my upbringing and my life.

♪ ♪

So a part of the work is really about this 
sense of honor in the celebratory kind of way

that the Soundsuits are fantastic, fantastical.

♪ ♪

I'm very much interested in being able to create 
these concepts that I can immerse myself in.

Cranbrook Art Museum really became 
the core of this immersive experience.

From that core were these satellite experiences 
that were built around performance activity.

[Choreographer]...as you're
doing this, don't forget,

more trotting, more
personality,

more character. Yeah!

More energy, more energy, more
energy.

There can never be enough
energy...

[Nick Cave] One of the performances at Cranbrook was 
really working with the Detroit School of Arts,

which is a public high school.

I think dance has always been a 
real critical part of my practice.

[energetic music]

The Soundsuits are really 
broken up into 2 bodies of work.

One is sculpture work.

Uh, and that's sort of the
static work that, you know, you see in the museums.

And then there's this sort 
of performance, uh, Soundsuits.

[drum music]

[cheering]

When producing a project of that scale--

all of these components and parts and elements--

they're all--it's like building
a collage.

[drumming]

I think by the end of the project,

probably over 500 people were involved 
in some aspect of the performance.

That's what we were interested 
in making happen in Detroit.

How do we get people out of their 
communities and engaged with the arts?

[clapping]

"Trayvon Martin" is a new work 
that was shown at Cranbrook.

It's made up of a Black mannequin dressed 
in a hoodie and sneakers and jeans.

And then surrounding its body 
is these plastic blow molds.

Which are, like, sometimes at Halloween,

there are these plastic forms 
that are set out in yards.

And so they are surrounding this 
sort of figure almost as guardians.

But then over top of the entire structure is 
this web that's constructed out of pony beads.

So from a distance,

it looks like this amazing sort of gold 
sculptural form until you get up close

and you realize that there 
is someone trapped inside.

[synth music]

It's very, very disturbing

what's going on right now politically 
within the Black community,

not only Chicago but around the country 
what's going on with police brutality

and these unarmed Black men that are being killed.

I mean, it just goes on and on.

You know, I think at the end of the day,

it's me giving back to the community 
and being this sort of change agent.

I want to change our way of 
engaging with one another.

I want to use art as a form of diplomacy.

That's why I'm in this state of urgency right now.

And I don't know.

I just feel so unsettled.

I'm doing what I'm doing,

but I'm not sure if it's happening fast enough.

♪ ♪

[soft electronic music]