{"id":12981,"date":"2019-08-07T23:29:35","date_gmt":"2019-08-08T03:29:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=12981"},"modified":"2019-08-07T23:29:35","modified_gmt":"2019-08-08T03:29:35","slug":"nick-cave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2019\/08\/07\/nick-cave\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018What Brings You Joy?\u2019\u2014Nick Cave Fills Boston Cyclorama With Holiday Inflatables"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThis is all that\u2019s going on right now in the world, all this chaos,\u201d Nick Cave tells me during a visit to the Cyclorama at the Boston Center for the Arts this afternoon.<\/p>\n

The Chicago artist was talking about his new installation there called \u201cAugment,\u201d<\/a> developed in collaboration with the Boston independent public art curators Now + There led by Executive Director Kate Gilbert. It debuts with a free public reception from 6:30 to 9 tomorrow night, Aug. 8, at 539 Tremont St.<\/p>\n

Cave says he has been thinking about the term \u201caugment,\u201d this notion to \u201cenhance or making things better,\u201d and thinking about \u201cthings that we need to feed our souls.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Nick<\/a>
Nick Cave’s “Augment,” Boston Center for the Arts Cyclorama, Aug. 7, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The installation consists of five large sculptures assembled from store-bought inflatables\u2014fabric sculptures of Santa and Uncle Sam and Frankenstein and the Easter Bunny, inflated by fans, that decorate people\u2019s lawns during the holidays. But Cave and his team have stitched them together into bright, crazy jumbled clouds of cartoony American spiritual icons.<\/p>\n

The project was inspired, in part, by the question \u201cWhat brings you joy?\u201d But there are also unsettling undercurrents. Looking around, Cave says, \u201cIt\u2019s a nightmare. And, you know, we wake up out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three of the inflatables hang suspended from the metal grid across the ceiling. Two sit on the floor. Two inflate and deflate and inflate again, breathing in a way. One is mostly flowers and Thanksgiving turkeys and haunted Halloween trees. Another is all spiders and rainbows, but on the back is a giant yellow Easter chick. You find sharks or dinosaurs chomping on the Easter Bunny or Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. In one spot, the Bumble abominable snowman\u2019s face is stuck on the face of Frankenstein. You might see Captain America and a pink Easter Bunny locked in an embrace or the Bumble maybe doing something with his mouth to some elephant\u2019s behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s some cruel things happening,\u201d Cave says. \u201cThere are some erotic things happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Nick<\/a>
Nick Cave at “Augment,” Boston Center for the Arts Cyclorama, Aug. 7, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On Saturday, Sept. 14, beginning at 11 a.m., the inflatables will be carried from the Cyclorama to Boston\u2019s Upham\u2019s Corner by flatbed truck in a procession accompanied by music and people carrying banners.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope it\u2019s festive,\u201d Cave says. \u201cOne community moving to the other one in a sort of reconciliation manner. \u2026 I\u2019m thinking of it as, it\u2019s almost bridging this gap between two communities that have sort of never interfaced with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are highlighting that great economic and racial disparity that happens in Boston. And this work has to happen with a lot of care and intention,\u201d Gilbert says. She says when she brought Cave to Uphams Corner, he said, \u201cThey need hope here. I can just feel it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an underserved neighborhood,\u201d Cave tells me. \u201cHell, what can I do to help change the look of that, to help address these divisions?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Nick<\/a>
Nick Cave’s “Augment,” Boston Center for the Arts Cyclorama, Aug. 7, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Upham\u2019s Corner, the inflatables will be displayed in a former bank at 555 Columbia Ave. from Sept. 20 to April 2020. \u201cComing out of these windows, from the top, will be these inflatables \u2026 as they appear to be bursting through,\u201d Cave says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s change. It\u2019s the urgency of an expressing an emotion that\u2019s bursting at the seams. It\u2019s a call out for enhancement, for attention in the neighborhood,\u201d Cave says. \u201cAt some point, things can no longer be suppressed. They find their way through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cave and Now + There partnered with Boston\u2019s Design Studio for Social Intervention (DS4SI) and four Boston artists\u2014L’Merchie Frazier, Barrington Edwards, Destiny Polk, Wilton Tejeda\u2014who lead some 30 community workshops. The artists invited community members to make collages using Cave\u2019s prompt: \u201cWhat gives you joy?\u201d The collages will be displayed in storefront windows and as banners on lightpoles around Uphams Corner. Cave has also remixed them to create a photographic wrap that began going up today on the former Dorchester bank building.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a sort of call and response,\u201d Gilbert says. \u201cIt\u2019s a great experiment in how we can collectively create work together that\u2019s not just one-sided.\u201d<\/p>\n

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If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"Nick<\/a>
Nick Cave’s “Augment,” Boston Center for the Arts Cyclorama, Aug. 7, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018This place of happiness\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

For Cave, \u201cAugment\u201d is a new direction after his exhibition \u201cIf a Tree Falls\u201d<\/a> at New York\u2019s Jack Shainman Gallery last November.<\/p>\n

Cave has been moving away from the \u201cSound Suits\u201d\u2014tall, fuzzy and furry costumes resembling Caribbean carnival masquerade\u2014that made his name. Instead, over the past decade, he\u2019s begun making what look like assemblages of antiques. For example, some of his early ones featured sculptures of dogs sitting on antique divans under briers of fake foliage with gold leaves and statues of birds.<\/p>\n

\"Nick<\/a>
Nick Cave “Soundsuit,” 2013.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For his \u201cUntil\u201d<\/a> project at Mass MoCA in North Adams in 2016 and \u201917, Cave filled a hanger-sized gallery with metal ornaments dangling from the ceiling that shimmered as they spun with cut-out silhouettes of stars and water drops and guns. Then there were metal steps that led to the top of chandelier-clouds that held, on top, old racist stereotype Black lawn jockeys with nets in their hands chasing statues of birds and butterflies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had been thinking about gun violence and racism colliding,\u201d Cave has said. \u201cAnd then I wondered: Is there racism in heaven? That\u2019s how this piece came about.\u201d<\/p>\n