Nick Cave: Thick Skin | ART21 "Exclusive"

Cranbrook Academy of Art is where I did my
graduate studies.

It was a bit shocking, I think, at the beginning,

because I was the only minority there.

This is in 1988.

I just considered myself another artist

out there amongst my peers.

And I think it was difficult because it was
the first time

that I was confronted with my identity as
a black male.

My mother told me when I was, like,
eight years old,

the complexity of what I would have to deal with.

So knowing made me think,
"I've got to build a thick skin."

"I've got to be able to operate in a world…"
[LAUGHS]

"...that could work against me
as opposed to for me."

What do I do with that?

I have been racially profiled.

I'm walking home with my portfolio
from teaching.

I am pulled...surrounded by
undercover cops saying,

"Lie down on the floor"--

because the convenience store was robbed
down the street.

That has been my reality.

Get it together up here.

Psychologically, I have to really get it together.

And I just have to get quiet--

to put it in perspective

and to, sort of,

not sort of lash out into rage.

And if I do, lashing out for me is
creating this.

All of that becomes the impulse to create.

I don't ever see the "Soundsuits" as fun.

They really are coming from a very dark place.

The "Soundsuits" hide gender, race, class.

And they force you to look at the work
without judgment.

You know, we tend to want to categorize everything.

We tend to want to find its place.

How do we, sort of, be one on one with something
that is unfamiliar?