April 27, 2012
FLAMBOYANT BUOYANCY: The Art of Nick Cave


I would like to take you to a land where brightly-colored, beautiful/odd (sometimes even phallic-shaped) creatures come alive, prance and dance around, and make a lot of strange noises while doing so.

Guess where we’re going folks? That’s right! To the very much charted territory of a gay artist many know and love, Nick Cave. 

BUT FIRST! Let’s get one thing straight (or maybe not-so-much):

The Nick Cave we’re talking about here is

 .

Got it? Kaygreat. Now that we’ve got that settled…

Let’s get started on learnin’ about this fabulous artist and his flamboyant works, better known as “soundsuits” and a bit about his other art too.

READY?!

SET

NICK CAVE (born in US, 1959; lives and works in Chicago, IL)

AMAZING QUOTE: 

“Sound doesn’t always have to be heard. Sound can also be created by how a pattern is set up on a surface- how it moves across the surface, how light reflects the surface [and] can generate a feeling. Sound can also be through feeling, through color, through texture.” - Nick Cave

Nick Cave seems to be an incredibly popular artist these days in contemporary art, but he’s actually been in the art game for quite some time- creating work that has been shown in galleries and museums since 1999. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the artist’s work, Cave is best known for his bright and colorful “soundsuits”, which are amazingly decorative creations that cover one’s entire body. Cave’s soundsuits are created by his know-how in both dance and textiles, which formed during his undergrad years when Cave learned how to sew and fell in love with textiles at the Kansas City Art Institute. While there, he also studied dance at an Alivn Ailey program. 

Along with being an art professor of the fashion department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Cave travels to other cities and gathers dancers from the community to dress up in soundsuits to engage in collective, public performances. Along with his creations being shown at multiple galleries and museums, they are also featured in countless fashion magazines…including Vogue. As if all of this weren’t enough, Cave has commodified his soundsuits by selling a whole line of soundsuit-inspired products from the “soundsuitshop”, where you can buy anything from t-shirts to magnets to scarves to wrapping paper. How much does an actual soundsuit cost? Trust me, you don’t want to know.

Ultimately, these creations lead a bit of a double life. In one way, they can act as sculptures on pedestals: 

But they completely come to life when worn as a full-on suit of sorts:

Nick Cave originally formed the idea of the Soundsuit unintentionally. Shortly after the infamous Rodney King beating, Cave became increasingly aware of the racial tensions that are still very much a part of America today (we still see it…just look at what happened to Trayvon Martin) and how the status of a black man stacks up on this country’s totem pole. While reflecting on this matter during a stroll in Chicago’s Grant Park, Cave began to collect sticks that seemed to be just as discarded as he felt by his own society. Once he got back to his studio, he cut all of the sticks into a uniform 3” in length, drilled holes in them, and started sewing them onto fabric. When finished, Cave thought of the object as nothing more than a sculpture, that is, until he tried it on for size…LITERALLY:

Once inside the suit, the artist began to move around and realized that he felt protected from the outside world. He also noticed that the rustling of the sticks made interesting noises every time he moved. Hence the name “Soundsuit”.

Cave still uses natural materials for his soundsuits at times, but today many are comprised of various thrift store finds which are then patchworked together, sometimes also including (but not limited to) dyed human hair, dryer lint, and even old socks that had once belonged to the artist. By collecting these forgotten and abandoned items and fusing them together in different, wearable forms, Cave ultimately manifests other kinds of beings. Beings that “… feel like they belong in a part of this world, but [we] don’t know where their place is.”

The first and only time I’ve had the privilege of being able to view some of Nick Cave’s soundsuits in person, they were on display, standing stagnant on pedestals at the Weatherspoon Art Museum. I was completely intrigued by the articulate way in which these very detailed, very bizarre structures came together. A looped video played in a corner near them of Cave himself performing in each of the featured soundsuits. Most of the time, there was no music because Cave wanted the viewer to hear the different sounds each suit made. These “creatures” all came to life and seemed to have their own personality to match the custom sound made by each of them. I’ve got to admit, the juxtaposition of rapid movements and sound to the awkward silence that the soundsuits were placed in made it SO HARD to watch with a straight face. 

People, I TRIED, I REALLY DID try to find at least a clip of this 15min-or-so looped video, but sadly, I could not. Instead I found footage from a college student soundsuit invasion from UCLA put on by Nick Cave, which isn’t quite the same, but you should still at least skim this video. Oh, and I DARE YOU not to smile.

Hey, do these soundsuits remind you of anything? Anything at all? 

If you guessed “those other-cultural kind of ‘costumes’ that we see in museums”, then you guessed right my friend!

Nick Cave frequently visits natural science museums and is often inspired by forms like the ones shown above. 

“What I think about when I frequent the Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan [Museum of Art], and I look at these artifacts that are taken out of context and how we’re forced to view them as objects, as relics, as sculpture— static. But what’s interesting is what it allows me to do in my head in terms of imagining what the possibilities are or imagining the role in which they played within a particular culture which I’m fascinated by.”                     - Nick Cave

Here’s another AMAZING QUOTE to go along with forms like these from Cave:

“This form comes about [by] looking at the mitre head, looking at the clan uniform, and looking at the head of a condom. So the intersections of all three of these has brought me to this form. (giggles) It gets a little intense.”

His traveling exhibition “Nick Cave: Meet Me At The Center of The Earth” made a stop at the Fowler Museum in 2010 and Cave was interviewed by its director, Marla C. Bernsasked. She asked him what material, scale and expansion of the human body means in terms of the his sound suits. The artist replied,

“I think first and foremost it’s really about this whole idea of erasing gender within the soundsuit and forcing the viewer to sort of come face-to-face with the unfamiliar.”

With the growing number of soundsuits made by Nick Cave, it’s not crazy to think that he has all but created another world. In this strange space where these creatures exist, communication would be made up of various movements and sounds in which each one can create within their means— there is no gender, no race, no sexuality, and no class in this utopian society. Ultimately, there is no judgement in this space, which I think is something that many humans yearn to experience— a life absent of being judged themselves. Yet we all at one time or another unintentionally perpetuate just the opposite.

OTHER WORKS AND THE FUTURE OF NICK CAVE:

Nick Cave also creates sculptures dealing with afro-centric stereotypes and artifacts and also looks at historical components that are critical to his practice of art. They give, in a sense, more explanation to his soundsuits and are composed of found objects (much like his “suits”) along with found black-faced painted lawn jockeys. Instead of his lawn jockeys holding lanterns below their heads, Cave makes them hold an “offering” of art to be held above their heads, in a less-passive manner. Ultimately, this addresses the whole notion of reconciliation, which then forces the viewer to reconsider the role and the power behind the imagery and the negativity that supports that.

He also takes other black-faced painted figurines and makes them juxtapose the role of religion along with the role of being a servant.

“Religion brings a sense of empowerment that helps an individual prevail and deal with circumstances that could be emotionally stressful.”

I find these sculptures by Nick Cave to be very powerful and moving in nature, but they hardly seem to be featured. I guess this work can easily fall into the shadows of the artist’s soundsuits. After all, Cave’s soundsuits cross over the boundaries of gender, race, sexuality, and class while bringing a smile to anyone and everyone’s face that comes in contact with them, which (if you haven’t guessed by now) is the major point of the soundsuits and the reason behind their success.

So what’s the next step for Nick Cave? In the Fowler’s artist talk and interview in 2010, Cave declared that by 2012, he would like to create a 90 soundsuit performance made up of all of the community performances he has made since then. It has yet to happen, but he still has time. Whether it happens this year or in 2015 it doesn’t really matter. Like they say, “You can’t rush art”.

Oh, and did I mention he would like to quit his day job? Ultimately, like all of us, Nick Cave would rather just do what he loves for a living- which is focusing only on his soundsuits and working with communities.

“My sound suits-they are what they are, but my real work is really sort of using them as a vehicle for change. That’s what’s the most important thing to me.”

Honestly, the with the wide acceptance of Cave’s art, he’s probably pretty close to that dream of his. As long as he keeps it going, there’s no where to go but up.

NOTES:

*Title image was created by yours truly

*All other images are ones taken from various google image searches, then put together by Katie Tyler

*All quotes from the artist were taken from this artist lecture/interview at the Fowler Museum at UCLA. Listen to/watch this vid if you have about an hour of spare time. Nick Cave discussing + answering questions about his work: http://vimeo.com/8872289 = SO WORTH IT!!!

*The Art Institute of Chicago’s information/artist statement of Nick Cave: http://www.saic.edu/gallery/saic_profile_faculty.php?type=faculty&album=461

*The SoundSuitShop is a resource for Nick Cave’s Soundsuits. You can follow the blog, get info on upcoming events, and buy Soundsuit-related merch: www.soundsuitshop.com

*Here’s a New York Times article on Cave’s Soundsuits

*Nick Cave is currently being represented by Jack Shainman Gallery

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Filed under: MEET ME AT THE CENTER OF THE EARTH art artist fowler museum gay artist identity katie tyler katietylerart.com lgbtq nick cave queer art queer art history race race relations soundsuit soundsuitshop 
December 17, 2011
Indefinitely Indefinite: The Work of the Artist Formally Known as Carter

Hello All! Sorry for not posting in a couple of months. I was seriously debating on whether or not to apply for grad schools for the fall of 2012. My only hitch? The portfolio/applications would be due in January. After seriously stressing and freaking out with trying to get five more pieces together in such little time, I figured that I might be rushing into this whole thing and decided to just apply for 2013. For the time being, I’m going to be checking out artist residency programs and shows to enter my work into, so if you beautiful readers (YES, that means YOU!) have any suggestions for me, please…by all means, let me know. I always love hearing from you! 

So the Weatherspoon Art Museum’s show, Persona: A Body in Parts, ended on the 11th of this month. That’s right people…all good things must come to an end. For my readers out there who don’t live around here and/or didn’t get a chance to view it in person, the Weatherspoon has posted a few photos of the exhibition here.

I’m writing about another artist featured in Persona: A Body in Parts. Carter is an openly gay artist who is quite conceptual and multi-disciplinary with his medium choices. He kind of demands a bit of explanation and attention…soooo I’m dedicating this post solely to his work. I already gave a lengthy description of what the show was about last time around, so click here if y’all are interested in catching up. Anyway, let’s get started!

CARTER (born in US, 1970; lives and works in New York)

Yep, that’s right. He has no first name…or wait…no last name? I don’t know. He’s like Prince, ya know? Maybe he gives himself only one name in order to become just as ambiguous as his work or maybe, like Prince, he’s just pretentious. I have my speculations, but I’ll let you make the call on that one.

AMAZING QUOTE:

“You’re never really a solid representation of yourself at all times. You’re different shades of yourself during different times of the day and for each experience and person you interact with.” - Carter

Carter is one of those- hard to pin down, put in a box, or even define at all –kinds of artists. He is multi-disciplinary, ranging from 2D, 3D, to 4D work. He creates paintings, drawings, photography, and sculptures, has made video installations, directed a feature-length film, and is about to direct a second one. 

The Weatherspoon Art Museum showcased his photography, sculpture, installations, and paintings. They even had a showing of his feature-length film, Erased: James Franco.

Not much information is out there for Carter. It wasn’t even until he released his first feature-length film that he showed the public his face. Before then, he wouldn’t even make his presence known when his work was being shown in various galleries/museums. Needless to say, there are no artist talks. 

Carter’s artwork gained significant popularity in 2005, when curator Matthew Higgs selected him for a small show in White Columns (one of Manhattan’s premier alternative spaces). Soon after his work was showcased, he and his art were invited to the 2006 Whitney Biennial.

Even though the New York-based artist knows no bounds in choice of media, all of his work comes to a common ground: self-portraiture and the ambiguity of identity. Carter challenges traditional portraiture by presenting the viewer with what he likes to call “anonymous portraits.”  When the artist was selected to show his work at the prestigious Whitney Biennial in 2006, a member of the staff wrote:

“Carter is interested in challenging notions of self-portraiture by making work that acts as a stand-in for an idea of someone. The subsequent second-generation rendering of a person who is already disguised compels us to question our own identity and the many devices we might use to conceal or transform it.”  

Did you get all that? No? Did you miss it? It’s cool…even if you got it, I’m about to break it down medium by medium in as much of a nutshell as I can. So who’s ready to see some disembodied, artificial body parts? Okay okay, here goes!

PHOTOGRAPHY:

Read More

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Filed under: art artist gay gay artist katie tyler katie tyler art katietylerart.com lgbt lgbt artist queer queer art queer art history queerartgoodness indefinitely indefinate 
October 12, 2011
The Concept of Self, Kate Gilmore and INSANEly Pink Walls

First of all, HAPPY LGBT HISTORY MONTH EVERYONE!!!!! It’s pretty exciting that we have our own history month, even if it’s mostly just the LGBT population that knows about it.

So to all of my straight readers out there:   

Second of all, here’s a forewarning that this post may be considered a little lengthy to some of you folks, but I’m covering a few different topics here. So go ahead: get your learnins on and enjoy!

On September 16th, The Weatherspoon Art Museum opened their newest exhibition organized by Xandra Eden titled Persona: A Body in Parts. The show is all about…yep! You guessed it… Persona. It showcases the many different representations of the self in contemporary art.

“…the exhibition includes a striking selection of work in which the body, whether the artist’s own or another’s, becomes a plastic surrogate form from which multiple and complex identities are projected… The artists in Persona adopt chameleon-like personas, don self-made “second skins,” and project fragmented views of the body, to create a view of identity similar to the effect of light shining through a prism, each part separating out into different, though often enigmatic, representations of the self… Artists participating in the exhibition include Barbara Probst, Nikki S. Lee, Carter, Kate Gilmore, Nick Cave, and Gillian Wearing.” - the Weatherspoon Art Museum

 Now I know that this is a slight sidestep from what I told everyone I would be talking about, which is queer art history. I’ll get back to the past soon enough, but for now I’d like to talk to y’all about the here and now in queer art.

Not only is this exhibition queer-related in some way/shape/form, but I am also writing about this particular exhibition in order to share my experience that’s taking place throughout it.

I’ll go ahead and answer your question, No. Not all of the artists are queer (although two out of the six featured artists are openly gay) and the work is not necessarily about queers, but the entire concept of the show is about the direct result of how the artists perceive their own identity and how they believe others see them. I mean, if you think about it, to label yourself as “queer, gay, lesbian, trans, bisexual, intersex, etc.” is an identity in and of itself, so let’s start identifying with this show and these artists, shall we?

First off, let’s talk about Kate Gilmore. She works in sculpture, performance, and video that challenges the limitations of the body. At thirty-six years young, Kate’swork has been exhibited at: the Brooklyn Museum; The Kitchen; Indianapolis Museum of Art; Bryant Park (Public Art Fund); Locust Projects; White Columns; Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati; Artspace; The J. Paul Getty Museum; The Rose Art Museum; and PS1/MoMA Contemporary Art Center. Her work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art; the Brooklyn Museum; Whitney Museum of American Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Boston; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago,

       oh yeah and the 2010 Whitney Biennial.

Needless to say, she’s pretty freakin’ successful.

KATE GILMORE (born in US, 1975; lives and works in NY)

 AMAZING QUOTE:

“Can we talk about something else, something more exciting?…what do you think of RuPaul’s Drag Race?…I love Rupaul’s Drag Race because it’s about a total transformation of the self, while at the same time accepting the self. These drag queens want to be men, but men who are fabulous women. It shows the malleability of identity and how there are so many possibilities and characters within one self…that’s what is so great about the drag race, that they are working so hard. It’s such a struggle.” -Kate Gilmore

Many of Gilmore’s works document her attempts to overcome her self-made obstacles constructed out of various materials, ranging from: a plaster-filled bucket to wood, to stacks of papers to stacks of hay. Not one of them seems to be easy on her body in the slightest. Viewers tend to watch her dark-humored videos with a sense of sympathy and anxiety. In an entertaining duel interview (which I totally recommend checking out) given by her older sister Jennifer Gilmore (a novelist) and Kate Gilmore herself, Kate gives reason behind her work’s success:

“I would say that I am more of an abstract thinker… I take ideas or experiences, not necessarily specifics, and abstract them. I think this allows an audience to relate to my work on a personal level and, hopefully, they are able to bring their own experiences into the pieces.”

Her performances tend to correlate to the idea of placing the sometimes-impossible demands that we create for ourselves in order to (possibly, someday) obtain the idealized version of one’s self. We all do it. Yes, that means you too.

I bet you all can relate to quite a few of her pieces, but one in particular gets me every time. The obvious theme here is a performer reaching the end of their show with the desire for applause, but is instead met with the opposite reaction from their audience (aka: getting pelted by tomatoes). I interpret this piece in a different way:

  

I never know whether to laugh or cry at this situation, but I can definitely relate to this character that continuously strives for an optimistic approach to life and/or acceptance from her desired audience and is constantly proven otherwise by her surroundings. I love how she keeps trying anyway. Anyone else feel me on this one? No? Just me? Anywayyyyss…moving on…..

In many of her performances, Gilmore wears what she likes to call “career clothing”, mainly involving a dress and high heels. In some cases the attire inhibits her and in other cases it assists her in getting out of these self-created situations. Most (if not all) of her performances can translate into feminist viewpoints. Let’s face it, whether the artist intends it or not- watching a woman escape situations by LITERALLY breaking through barriers in high heels and a dress- the concept makes total sense.

In the same dual interview with the Gilmore sisters, we find out that they grew up in a Jewish household in Washington, DC. Jennifer tries to correlate Kate’s work with their childhood by comparing the type of clothing that’s worn in her performances to their mother (who worked in DC) while also comparing it to Hilary Clinton’s get-up. Kate disagrees. She envisions the career clothing to symbolize something very different:

“I see…that type of woman as being the future, as progress. Transformation. Hillary [Clinton] wasn’t a 1950’s housewife, that’s the past. However, there is something that has always fascinated me about that generation of women. The space between that transformation is really interesting.” 

Just last year, Gilmore started including other performers in her works. The Public Art Fund commissioned Walk the Walk in 2010, which consisted of seven women in identical bright yellow career dresses and ivory pumps, purchased at Chadwick’s, walking around the top of an eight-foot tall yellow box. This box was set in one of the busiest sections of Manhattan, Bryant Park, for ten hours a day. The performance itself was very successful as it both charmed and baffled the NYC public.

“…the piece at Bryant Park. It changed how I wanted to work. There were definitely problems, but it ended up being a great artistic moment for me that allowed me to open up and try new things. I realized that I don’t have to be the central character in everything, I can move in and out of the work, I can make big sculpture, there can be live performances, etc. There are tons of possibilities that, for some reason, I was unable to see until this piece. It is easy to get stuck in a process. You know how to do something well and you become known for a certain type of work. It is scary to try something else, but it was one of the most exciting artistic experiences of my art life.”

Since then, Kate Gilmore has continued to use other people in her pieces, especially her live performances (which she then records). The Weatherspoon Art Museum is showing Gilmore’s Main Squeeze and has commissioned the artist to create a live performance titled Wall Bearer, which I am one of many to perform in. 

WALL BEARER:

Twelve women perform this piece throughout the duration of the exhibition. Six women work at a time. Every performance is three hours long. During this three hour long period, the women are not allowed to move, speak, or react to the outside world. Sounds pretty intense right? 


Okay, I have to admit that I missed out on the artist’s talk about Wall Bearer at the Weatherspoon Art Museum. When Kate Gilmore came to the Weatherspoon to talk to us at our training session, she didn’t mention the meaning behind this piece. While spending time in my little pink box, I’ve had plenty of time to think things through here, so I’ll go ahead and make my own interpretation: 

Although all six women are wearing the same dress and shoes (purchased at Chadwick’s of course), they still vary in size, shape, race, and have different hairstyles. They all are placed in conformity and are not allowed to react to the audience, yet parts of their self shine through. 

Another interpretation: Because pink is seen as a gender-associated color for females and the space given to the performers is so small, it could also be a commentary on how women can only go so far in life…about how we all have our limitations in this world.

———————————————————————————————————

I was going to write about my experience with this performance now, but I’ve decided to wait until the end of the exhibition (in December) to share. I’m not going to leave you hangin’ completely… here’s a little behind-the-scenes info: 

First of all, even though we just stand in one place for three hours, it’s still an endurance performance. Sure, you’re body gets numb in some places, but it’s more of a mental challenge than anything. And it is because of this mental challenge that no performance is the same every time. It all depends on my mood when I enter the (as Kate Gilmore likes to call it) “vertical shelving unit”. I sometimes see my temporary environment as a pink jail cell that I can easily go insane in, and other times I see it as a thinking/reflection/meditation chamber. I’ve come up with some pretty interesting ideas for my own pieces in there so far. I’ve also experienced some pretty entertaining reactions from the audience. Who knows what will happen next? I sure as hell don’t, but I’ll let you know as soon as it’s all said and done with. 

If you’re around Greensboro, NC and want to check out the show and see a live performance of Wall Bearer, make sure to visit the Weatherspoon Art Museum’s Event Calendar.

NOTES:

*The title illustration was created by me. You can visit my website @ www.katietylerart.com

*All quotes from Kate Gilmore were taken from the same dual interview posted by Jennifer Gilmore at: http://bombsite.com/articles/4936

*The video still of With Open Arms was taken from Kate Gilmore’s website

*The photo of the performance Wall Bearer was taken on the opening of Persona: A Body in Parts by Martin Tucker. More photos of the exhibition can be seen here.

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Filed under: art feminism feminist art identity lgbt performance art persona queer queer art Katie Tyler katietylerart.com artist lgbt 
September 14, 2011
FIRST BLOG POST….SAY WHAAAAA?!



For those of you who don’t know me personally, I’m a 20-something-year-old queer southern lady who makes art. I’d like to find my way back to some sort of academic setting in the arts in the near future, but for now, I’m just going through a kind of quarter life crisis.

So I’m going to be real with y’all…I’ve been meaning to start this blog since the fall of 2010, but what can I say? Nothin’ I guess. I’m not even going to try to make any excuses. Instead, I’m just going to start off by telling everyone what I want this blog to be because, knowing me, there’s no telling where it might end up!

First off, I’d like to help educate y’all in some queer art history. That is one interest that while in school, I was dying to learn about but had little help from the school system. Instead, I had to venture out and learn on my own about these amazing artists and would love to share my knowledge with as many people as I possibly can. Hopefully one day I’ll join the ranks of these artists, but for now, one can only hope. I’d also like to learn from you lovely folks too: gay and straight and every kind of in-between -person alike. 

I’d like to put the ush (*usual) in here as well, such as life experiences, things that inspire me and my artwork itself.

I would also love to hear from you guys! If there is a topic or question you would like for me to talk about, feel free to ask.

And yes, I can assure you that slang terms and southern words will frequent this blog, so brace yourself.

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Filed under: art artist lgbt lgbt artist painter queer queer art queer art history Katie Tyler katietylerart.com 
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